Julia Fox has defended her controversial Jackie Kennedy dress after she faced backlash.
The 35-year-old actress made a blood-soaked replica of the famous pink suit Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wore when her husband, President John F. Kennedy, rode alongside her in a motorcade in 1963.
Pictures of Fox posing in the costume at a New York City Halloween party on Thursday quickly went viral, with social media users calling the costume “insensitive.”
“This is sick and disgusting!” One of them was criticized on X, with another writing: “She calls herself a feminist but wants to make fun of a woman at what was probably the most traumatic moment of her life. Interesting.”
Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedys’ own grandson, shared a post saying: “Julia Fox’s glorification of political violence is disgusting, disappointing and dangerous. I’m sure her late grandmother would agree.”
However, Foxx said in a statement that she dresses as Onassis “not as a costume, but as a statement.”
“When her husband was assassinated, she refused to change out of her blood-soaked clothes, saying, ‘I want them to see what they’ve done.'”
She continued: “Her decision not to change clothes, even after being encouraged, was an extraordinary act of bravery. It was a performance, a protest, a mourning. A woman weaponizing image and grace to expose brutality. It’s about shock, power, and how femininity itself is a form of resistance.”
“Long live Jackie O,” he concluded his statement. The former first lady died in 1994 at the age of 64.
After Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy, Onassis’ pink Chanel suit was covered in blood from holding her husband’s head. Thirty minutes after the shooting, Kennedy was killed.
Onassis refused to change out of his blood-soaked clothes and said he regretted washing the blood off his face and hands. At the time, he was quoted as saying he wanted “to see what they’ve done to Jack.”
Hours after the assassination, he wore the bloody clothes while standing next to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson stood as he was sworn in on Air Force One.
Even with Fox’s arresting explanation for her tribute, fans weren’t convinced the ceremony honored Onassis, especially after the late first lady’s rose garden was recently paved over in new White House renovations.
