In a twist that we all kind of saw coming, it seems Julia Fox has been caught embellishing some details about her second date with Kanye West.
ICYMI, the Uncut Gems actress penned an essay for Interview Magazine earlier this week recounting her new whirlwind romance with Ye. According to Julia, the two met on New Year’s Eve in Miami and their relationship has progressed organically ever since. For their second date, the two flew to New York to see Slave Play and dine at Carbone, after which the rapper surprised Julia with an entire hotel room filled with clothes, styling her to look eerily similar to his estranged wife Kim Kardashian.
Julia’s words ran alongside images of the two on this elaborate second date, sparking intense debate and criticism.
One such critique is that Julia’s details of their dinner at Carbone don’t seem to match up with footage circulating social media. In her essay, Julia says that Kanye directed a photoshoot for her while people dined around them. “The whole restaurant loved it and cheered us on while it was happening,” she writes.
However, a video clip taken by a diner and posted to TikTok by user @bummerroberts shows quite the opposite. In the clip, staff awkwardly squeeze past Julia as she poses for photos in the middle of the busy restaurant. There doesn’t appear to be anyone paying attention to the photoshoot, let alone cheering them on.
This clip has led many to believe that Julia ‘lied’ for attention or clout, but some pop culture commentators have a more nuanced take.
Michelle of @kardashian_kolloquium, a Kardashian family analysis account, theorises that Julia and Kanye’s ‘relationship’ is more than just a PR stunt— rather, it’s a scene in “the performance art meets active media theater” that is the Kimye divorce. Pulling from an observation made by writer Patrik Sandberg that Kim and Kanye’s divorce looks like it’s being “dressed by” Balenciaga, Michelle suggests this “tabloid drama” is possibly one big ad for the brand.
“I think advertising is getting more entrenched in media images and it’s harder and harder to tell what’s real and what’s an ad,” she explains. “I think Kimye, as a unit, is really good at storytelling. And I also think that these kinds of media stories are more and more becoming centralised forms of entertainment in a weird way, almost like the new TV shows.”
Australian stylist and podcast host, Deni Todorovič, also came to a similar conclusion. Taking to Instagram stories on January 8th, Deni compares photos and videos of Julia styled by Kanye to the Yeezy Season 6 lookbook featuring paparazzi-style photos of Kim Kardashian out and about in LA. “What if this is all some kind of a teaser for Kanye’s Gap Balenciaga Yeezy collaboration?” Deni theorises. This suggestion tracks, as Kanye revealed the collaboration just one day after the Interview Magazine feature was published.
If it’s true that this is all just one big advertisement, then Julia may have been hired as the face of the collaboration. She may have also agreed to participate in this PR performance as a sure-fire way to raise her public profile and reach a level of relevancy she had yet to achieve in Hollywood.
Whatever the case may be, we can always count on Kim and Kanye to give us something to talk about— even while separated!