Joey Nolfi is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. Since 2016, his work at EW includes RuPaul’s Drag Race video interviews, Oscars predictions, and more.
Actress Julia Fox has spoken out in defense of her bloody Jackie Kennedy Halloween costume, after intense online backlash to her outfit that was inspired by the former first lady’s image in the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.
Following pushback to the costume, which saw Fox dressed in a pink suit stained with fake blood mirroring the carnage of the day the former president was shot and killed while riding in a car with his wife, the 35-year-old addressed the controversy in an Instagram post on Halloween.
“I’m dressed as Jackie Kennedy in the pink suit. Not as a costume, but as a statement,” Fox wrote. “When her husband was assassinated, she refused to change out of her blood-stained clothes, saying, ‘I want them to see what they’ve done.’ The image of the delicate pink suit splattered with blood is one of the most haunting juxtapositions in modern history.”
Fox called the imagery a mix of “beauty and horror” and “poise and devastation,” which are emotions she wanted to channel with the outfit.
“Her decision not to change clothes, even after being encouraged to, was an act of extraordinary bravery,” Fox continued. “It was performance, protest, and mourning all at once. A woman weaponizing image and grace to expose brutality. It’s about trauma, power, and how femininity itself is a form of resistance.”
The star ended her post by writing, “Long live Jackie O,” in addition to a heart emoji.
Earlier, Fox shared footage of herself to her Instagram Story, which showed her — as the former first lady — grabbing the breast of performer Linux.
She later shared a story video that showed her posing next to entertainer Joe Hegyes, who was dressed as Mary Todd Lincoln.
“First Ladies Club,” Hegyes wrote in the caption of the post.
Fox’s costume drew polarized reactions from people on the internet.
“Wow. I gasped. So inappropriate,” wrote digital creator Alison Barker under PEOPLE’s Instagram video of Fox’s Halloween costume.
A reader commented, “I have an extremely dark sense of humor and even I find this horribly tasteless and inappropriate.”
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Though many members of Jackie’s family have died, several have worked in politics in recent years, including daughter Caroline Kennedy and nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for the JFK Library Foundation and RFK Jr. for comment.
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