Julia Fox Reveals ‘Red Flag’ Moment That Made Her Breakup With Kanye West

Julia Fox said she broke up with Kanye West at the first indication of “a red flag.” Following a New Year’s Eve party in 2021, Fox and West dated briefly at the beginning of the year. The couple split about a month later, in February, Fox wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post. Fox briefly explained the split in a new interview with the Evening Standard via Insider. “I was just going day by day and seeing where it went,” Fox told the outlet. “It was just like, he still wants to hang out with me today, let’s do it. And then real life set in, and the lifestyle wasn’t sustainable. I couldn’t fly away once a week. And I tapped out at the first sign of a red flag.” Fox said she might have stayed in the relationship longer if it had occurred before the birth of Valentino, her one-and-a-half-year-old son, with ex-husband Peter Artemiev. 

Despite this, she felt West’s “unresolved issues” were a warning sign. “It just seems like he had a lot to work on, and I just don’t have time for it, or energy,” she told the Evening Standard. “I don’t have the bandwidth or emotional capacity for it. I’m proud of myself for that.” At the time of his relationship with Fox, there was, and still is, a divorce pending between West and ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. Fox stated on Instagram in February that she wasn’t in love with West and denied being upset over the breakup. She slammed a news report claiming she was seen in tears at an airport, claiming she hadn’t cried “since 1997. “Why not see me for what I am which is a #1 hustler,” she responded at the time. “I came up yall.”

Social media users scrutinized her claim that she hadn’t been in love with West as fans reviewed multiple interviews where she gushed about their short-lived relationship. A week after their first meeting on New Year’s Eve, West and Fox shared intimate photos and a blog post for Interview magazine. Fox publicly said she was “surrendering” to West the following week, on Jan. 15. “[With] Ye… [it’s] the most instant natural organic attraction and connection,” she went on. “I just feel really safe with him.” In addition, she denied dating the rapper “for clout” on her Forbidden Fruits podcast, saying, “People are like, ‘Oh, you’re only in it for the fame, you’re in it for the clout, you’re in it for the money…’ Honey, I’ve dated billionaires my entire adult life, let’s keep it real.” He released the song “Eazy” with The Game in January, while he was dating Fox, which contained a line about Pete Davidson, who was romantically linked to Kardashian at the time. As West and Fox split, he began speaking publicly about his divorce from Kardashian and co-parenting and criticized his daughter North’s presence on TikTok.