Photo:Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC
Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC
Actress Julia Fox, 33, has become one of the most photographed women on the planet, thanks in part to becoming a household name after shedated Kanye Westin early 2022, and her much-talked aboutdaring red carpet looks.
But at the end of the day, she’s also just a mom — one who is deeply in love with her son Valentino, 2, but also one understood very quickly after his birth just how “unfair” the dynamics were between her and her ex, who didn’t have to face the same responsibilities that she did when it came to taking care of him.
In her new memoirDown the Drain(out Oct. 10)Fox writes candidly about everything, including her son’s birth. She also writes about her childhood growing up in New York City, being a wild teenager in the downtown nightclub scene, developing a heroin problem and landing a role in the Adam Sandler movieUncut Gems.
Richie Khan / Simon & Shuster
She also writes about her experience withdating Kanye Westafter his breakup fromKim Kardashian.— admitting that she didn’t sign the NDA he wanted her to sign while they were together.
During a routine checkup on January 16, three weeks before the due date, my doctor delivers the news no mother wants to hear: My blood pressure is approaching the danger zone and they want to induce labor today. I begin to panic. I don’t have diapers or a crib. I don’t even have a car seat or a stroller! I tell the doctor I feel fine and beg for a few hours to gather my things—and, more importantly, to have my maternity photos taken.
Valentino has come a few weeks early, but he’s absolutely perfect. He is the most beautiful little boy I have ever laid my eyes on. When I see him using every bit of strength to inch his body close to mine, I am filled with a love so visceral, it could shatter the earth. I am his. And he is mine. It’s the kind of love that claws its way out of your gut, rips you apart, and puts you back together again. He is worth all the blood and pain, all the tears, and all the sleepless nights.
I wonder sometimes, if Gianna hadn’t died, if he would be here. I think he would be, and so would she. I can picture her sassing me and bossing me around, reprimanding me when I’m being lazy, and telling me what to do because she always knew best. I can hear her voice so clearly yelling, “He’s my son too, ya know?!” I just know she would have moved in with me and never left my side. I can’t help but feel like I was so close to achieving my ultimate dream scenario. It feels like I played the lottery and got every number right except the very last one, instantly crushing any faith I had in life.
One day, he comes home in the middle of the day as I’m lying in bed with our son, and I pick up a faint buzzing sound coming from the bath- room. I slip out of bed so as not to wake Valentino and tiptoe toward the bathroom, where I peek inside and find Andrew shaving his pubic hair. I feel a bolt of rage shoot through me then immediately diffuse itself. I’m too tired. I don’t want to argue and I don’t want to know. I run back into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep.
We both start laughing and I feel my anger dissipate. I find it hard to believe that I didn’t share my pregnancy journey with her, but I know it’s for the best. We spent so many years glued to each other for fear of being on our own, and maybe we needed that distance to establish our own identities, separate from each other. We’ve come so far from the raggedy greased-up teenagers we used to be, from that first time I saw her on the 8th Street stoop in those pink patent-leather platform boots. It’s truly a miracle that we are even still alive.
source: people.com
