If Julia Fox was looking for attention this Halloween with her Jackie Kennedy costume, she certainly found it.
The actress and New York influencer is facing serious backlash after dressing up as the former first lady—or, more specifically, for dressing up to mimic her look in the hours that followed John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination.
Posing for Instagram in her take on the familiar pink Chanel suit, right down to the bloodstains, Fox wrote that she was wearing it "not as a costume, but as a statement."
"When her husband was assassinated, [Kennedy] refused to change out of her blood-stained clothes, saying, 'I want them to see what they've done,'" she continued.
"Her decision not to change clothes, even after being encouraged to, was an act of extraordinary bravery. It was performance, protest, and mourning all at once. A woman weaponizing image and grace to expose brutality."
The backlash over Jackie Kennedy costume
Although Fox insisted her Halloween look was a nod to "trauma, power, and how femininity itself is a form of resistance," she soon found herself facing accusations of trying to be edgy while passing off a need for attention as something deeper.
Bernice King called it "crass" and noted that she "immediately thought of Caroline Kennedy," the only remaining daughter of JFK Jr. and Jackie Kennedy.
Caroline's son, Jack Schlossberg, clearly felt the same, writing, "Julia Fox glorifying political violence is disgusting, desperate and dangerous. I’m sure her late grandmother would agree."
"I hate when people do something kinda weird and then try to put a self-righteous, 'you just don’t get the deeper meaning,' spin on it," @TheDejaKing commented on X. "you thought it was camp to dress up as the most horrifying moment in someone’s life and it didn’t quite land, just own it for what it was Julia."
X user Liz Benichou said, "I understand that people in Hollywood constantly need to try and be edgy in order to get attention or stay relevant. But this is just absolutely vulgar, especially in today’s climate political assassination are still very real. Absolutely disgusting."
In defense of Julia Fox
Despite the backlash, there were still plenty of people who shrugged it off. Some noted that there are plenty of offensive costumes that come out during Halloween and felt this is lower on the list of backlash priorities, while others pointed out that Fox is by no means the first person to dress up as the particular iteration of Jackie Kennedy.
One person even went so far as to suggest, "This is actually what Halloween is supposed to give," seemingly on the basis that the Kennedy assassination is such an important part of history and, in a way, pop culture.
Regardless of what you think of the costume itself, there's another layer at play when it comes to Fox's rambling explanation as to why she went with it—just about everyone thinks it was actually written by ChatGPT.
So, what kind of statement are we left with now?
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