RACHEL RABBIT WHITE — Your fame means something to a lot of overlapping New York underground communities. You grew up here. You’ve been known as an artist for years, a downtown icon, and you’ve been so open about your past career as a dominatrix. So when Uncut Gems came out, that was all over the press, and in the New York City sex work community that created a buzz, like she’s one of us, and she’s really doing it.
JULIA FOX — It’s always been in the back of my mind… Just that I’ve been given these opportunities when that just doesn’t happen for a lot of sex workers. It’s that people don’t take you seriously if you’re a creative and also a sex worker… I wish I could go back in time and tell myself ten years ago things are going to turn around for you and you’ll be seen finally. At the time, I didn’t have high hopes but I was optimistic. I knew I didn’t want to be in the sex industry forever but I really didn’t know how I would get out, I didn’t have a plan. I’m really grateful for how everything happened organically.
RRW — It was so exciting to have an actual Hollywood It-girl who was open about having been a sex worker. I do think attitudes are slowly getting there but more slowly than they should be.
JF — Well, for instance, after a movie like Uncut Gems, I probably should have gotten some sort of brand deal, whether Chanel or something like that. But you know, that didn’t happen. And I’m sure that it’s because I don’t have the cleanest image. And it’s like, well, I’m a real fucking bitch and that’s what people want nowadays. It’s like—and you get it—I honestly feel like they’d be lucky to have someone like me to endorse them, you know what I mean? Like, they’re just not there yet I feel. But you know, for sex workers, Cardi B is like, a great example. Like, she’s really doing her thing. That’s huge for, you know, a stripper to come out and now be like fucking Cardi B. So, I feel like, you know, music now has accepted it. Hopefully film and television will become a little more accepting.
RRW — Completely. I’m looking it up now and Cardi only got her first luxury brand deal last
year—it was with Balenciaga… This is a couple years after she brought their brand into the zeitgeist, you know… “I like those Balenciagas/ the ones that look like socks.” Did you ever feel pushback directly because of how open you’ve been about your life?
JF — I’m not going to name names or anything, but people I’ve never even met, executive people, studio people, had comments. There were some things said about my figure, about my butt potentially being too big to be in a movie, which is ridiculous because we see big boobs in movies. A big butt is super mainstream now and it’s like, ‘Get with it!’ And also I was born with a big butt. My mom has a big butt. It’s an Italian gene that I have. You know, what am I supposed to do, apologize for it and hide it so that your reaction to me is acceptable? I’m not responsible for your reaction to me. Get your fucking head out of the gutter.
RRW — That’s crazy. I feel like audiences completely celebrated your ass on the big screen!
JF — Yeah, exactly. It turns out that Josh Safdie was 100% right in casting me because there were many things that people loved and enjoyed about the performance and about me and the character. My manager always tells me your people will find you. And it’s so true. When I was younger I was a little more frantic, a little bit more like, ‘Oh, what am I going to do?’ My parents don’t have money, I don’t have an inheritance. I was always hustling, I had to support myself. I used to freak out and come up with ways to make money. It’ll be crypto, it’ll be marijuana, it’ll be this or whatever, but now I’m just so much more relaxed because I know that even if I don’t work for like a month, something will come. And it always does. So, I definitely don’t stress about that anymore.
RRW — That was one thing I wanted to talk about, how when you do sex work in New York City you become keenly aware of how much money other people have and of the disparity of wealth.
JF — I remember when I was working, I had never had a thousand dollars before, I had
never held a thousand dollars before. And I remember that feeling. I remember getting tipped a thousand dollars and seeing that money in my checking account. I just remember being, like, ‘No, that check was fake, it bounced. He canceled it. There’s no way.’ And I remember when I saw it. And now a thousand dollars isn’t as much money to me, but at the time I felt like, wow, you know? I was living on my own and I just got so thrown, I got exposed to things that I never had growing up, for sure, like I was literally 18 years old checking the stock market because that would in turn affect my clients, my money.
RRW — I’m curious, with your success, what is your relationship like to money now?
JF — Oh, I’m still super cheap. Everyone knows that about me. But if it’s like your money, oh, then, we are going, yeah, then I can spend like a mother, like actually scary, like, $60,000 in an hour scary. But now that it’s my money, that’s a whole different story. I’m also really into saving and smart financial decisions and I think that does come from growing up without money and always being afraid that it’s going to be taken away at any moment. I live in the East Village and that’s my lifestyle. It’s not glamorous at all. I was actually thinking the other day, like no matter who the woman is, it could be Mariah Carey, it could be Beyonce, there is so much upkeep as women. There’s nothing glamorous about it! Especially if you’re a mother. But from the jump we have to wax, there is just so much we have to do, or are conditioned to do, and it’s like we just do it on autopilot.
RRW — Yeah and then when you don’t come from money, the upkeep can become something you do because you realize that your looks are an asset, not necessarily because you want to!
JF — I realized it in middle school. Prior to that I was a tomboy. I was kind of a lesbian. I grew up with my dad and my brother and my next door neighbor who was a boy. I wasn’t into being girly. But then when I realized, ‘Oh guys like me when I’m more feminine presenting, they’re nicer to me, and I can get things when I am this other way…’ The switch was overnight. I started
wearing heels the same week. I was fully going to milk it to the max, you know?
RRW — IAnd there’s layers to it, too. I remember going back on the train the first night I worked at a strip club and I was like…. I’ve been doing this job my whole life, pleasing men. I’ve cultivated this skill, I’m good at it, and now I’m finally getting paid for it. I was so shook that I didn’t notice I’d missed my stop like three stations ago.
JF — For me with dominatrixing, it was more of like, I have been in these kinds of abusive relationships all my life, now I can be paid for it. Because the dominatrixing was, it’s much less about sex and more about mind-fucking and being a sadist or being a masochist or whatever. And so it was a little more emotional I would say. I just felt like I released so much aggression on these guys. And obviously there were submissive moments in there as well. At the end of the day it is a service. You’re a dominatrix. You are providing a service.
RRW — Cat Marnell said that I should ask you about the South. You ran away to The South when your New York life got too crazy, in 2015. You went to Louisiana, where you were living with the guys from the band Salem for some of the time, going around, documenting crazy stuff for an art book.
JF — That’s so funny. I went to visit friends and basically just never left. I went down there just because I wanted to not be reminded of anything. Like, I just really wanted everything brand new and, you know, prior to that I’d been living such a, it was a lavish life, for sure, but it was fucked up and I was in some unhealthy relationships. I just wanted to get away where I didn’t know anyone and nobody know me. And I ended up there. Through discovering the South, I also kind of discovered the rest of the United States. And that was really cool, because prior to that I was just such a city kid. I was literally like the meme of the guy in the ocean wearing Tims, like scrolling on his phone. I did make friends. They were telling me about Katrina. A lot of them still didn’t have running water or electricity. Their shit is still really fucked up. And it’s really, really sad just how it’s overlooked. It’s fucking crazy, the amount of poverty. And my friends from Louisiana, they still hit me up and they’ll be like, ‘Yo, this is crazy. I can’t believe you’re in the fucking movies.’ And I’m like, ‘I know, this is wild.’ We were literally chilling in a trap house with no electricity or running water all day, all night. And fucking now I’m in a fucking movie. Like, that’s crazy. But I don’t know... I kind of always knew something like that would happen one day. I just always had an inkling. You know how you just know? That’s why I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be, where I was meant to be. Like, God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle or that isn’t made for you, tailored specifically for you. And this just happens to be my experience.
Jacket, corset, shoes and sunglasses DOLCE & GABBANA, earrings BP JEWELRY