I must confess that I am one of those people who is fascinated by Julia Fox. When she first came to my attention during her brief tenure as Kanye’s girlfriend, she was easy to write off as just another woman looking for her 15 minutes. I’ve since come to realize that my affinity for her is because she reminds me of an “old school” celebrity from the early days of Internet gossip. You know what I mean! She knows what to say and how to dress to get us to talk about her. She’s thirsty for attention and knows how to quench it. That said, she’s also pretty open and honest about her backstory and motivation to earn money (her son). She just seems like a very complicated person who is good at promoting her brand, which is herself.
Like all good self-promoters, Julia has a TikTok. A few days ago, Julia made a video, which you can watch below, in which she drops some tea on a project that she says she’s been involved with for five years. According to Julia, she had to quit this long-term project after its director was hired because he ended up being a racist POS. When he was first brought on board, she had a call with him. During this call, Julia and Unnamed Director X clashed over whether or not to have a diverse cast. According to this director, diversity casting is racist and white people have it hard too. OMFG.
“OK, so the craziest thing just happened to me,” she began. “So I’ve been attached to a project for five years. I’ve given creative contributions to it, emotional contributions to it, it was like my baby. I even brought on like a major, major A-list icon to play alongside me and everything was going great until this white man director came in.”
She went on to explain that the white male director, who she doesn’t name, “was trying to kick me off the project. Meanwhile I’ve been there for five years and he’s been there for a week. I had mentioned [to him] that I really thought it was important to have diversity in our lead cast,” which apparently rubbed him the wrong way.
“He said, ‘Why? White people have it really hard too. And plus, diversity casting is like using Black people as puppets.’ Meanwhile, we’re actors, we’re all f-cking puppets, what are you talking about?” she said while reading from notes she said she took during the call.
“‘White people don’t have a duty to cast Black people because so many Black projects happen and Asian projects and nobody gets mad that there’s no white people in the cast.’ He said ‘Turn on Netflix, turn on any streamer, it’s all Black projects. Go to India, all the movies in India have all Indian people, nobody gets mad that they don’t have diversity.’”
“I said, ‘Honey, white people have been the default up until now. Let them have their all Indian movies,’” to which he allegedly said, “‘What are you talking about? Wake up, we are in 2024—this isn’t 2005 or something.’”
“It was giving Proud Boy, it was giving ‘All Lives Matter,’ it was giving white supremacy, and at that point I was done arguing,” she says. “And I said ‘You know what, I can’t work with you, I’m done.”
Julia went on to say she’s “grown to love the people attached, the producers, the writers, the other actor in question, and I don’t want to blow up this whole thing for them,” but “I just can’t believe I’m having conversations like this in 2024.”
It’s not yet known which project she was referring to, nor the director.
Well, first and foremost, I absolutely have to know who this director is. This is a pretty wild blind item. Who do we think it could be? It’s not surprising that a white male director would say this, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people say this kind of sh-t with their whole chest and no shame. If what Julia’s saying is true, then I want him to be exposed so that everyone knows just who they’re working with or who is benefiting from their support. In the same vein, I also would love to know the name of the project she quit and whether the A-list star that she brought on board is still willing to be attached to it. While a big name star may have the ability to walk away, I feel badly for the crew members who are now involved in what surely will become a mess because of a director that they had no hand in hiring.
@juliafox SMDH 🤮🤮🤮
Photos credit: Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Backgrid and via Instagram
It never occurs to these racists that “black projects” are usually a result of having to create spaces for writers, directors,actors because they can’t get hired by these white men. Just say you don’t want to hire black and brown people and be done. The mental gymnastics is exhausting.
That’s along with what I say to people who complain about all/mostly female projects. For years men said well, make your own projects then. And once they did those same men bitched and moaned.
I don’t know a lot about filmmaking but the difference in budgets and scale between streaming shows and feature films seems pretty vast, so the “look at all the diversity on streaming platforms” feels like a pretty weak argument.
Unsubstantiated guess: Brad Pitt.
Julia has been tied for years to the movie version of “Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life’ about the life of celebrity hairstylist Carrie White.
If anyone can find the director, I bet that is it.
https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/7/15/julia-fox-quits-movie-calls-director-racist-for-not-hiring-black-actors
This article agrees with your guess. She’s left clues as to the director’s identity, but I don’t know who it is.
She’s still attached to that, so if her name is removed, we have a winner.
No director named yet, so he too could be the subject of change.
I sometimes wish these people would just name the guilty, none of this guessing game.
Just got a chance to view her video: I believe her. I love the fact that she said that she’s certain that he’s not gotten opportunities due to his $h!tty personality. It sure seems unfair that she feels the need to protect the other people in this project because of what might happen to their work if she names this a-hole. And it’s absolutely ridiculous that she’s out of work because of it as well. I hope she gets hired on something she loves soon.
There has to be more to this story. A director doesn’t just show up out of thin air – he has to be hired by the producers. And a person who’s been as important to the project as she says she was doesn’t just walk off a project without taking the fight up to the producer level. I’m not saying she’s wrong about the director, that’s totally believable, I just wonder why the producers would tolerate a guy like that.
Because they’re just like him? Hold the same beliefs? The power structure of Hollywood is slow to change; any power structure is.
These white men really believe that they’re being “replaced”. It’s like they think they’re going to disappear! They can still have as many kids as they want and marry who they want but somehow they still think their “way of life” is coming to an end. What they really don’t like is that movies , tv shows, city hall, magazines, politicians, etc. don’t look like it’s still 1950.
Glad she outed this guy (almost.)