Julia Fox is an Italian American writer, actor, model, photographer, and designer. She was born in Milan, Italy, to parents Gracie and Thomas Fox and is the eldest of three siblings. She lived in Italy until she was six, when she moved to New York City to live with her father. Throughout her childhood, she visited her mother in Italy intermittently but primarily resided in Manhattan with her father despite familial and domestic upheaval. In Down the Drain, Fox details the events of her tumultuous childhood, coming of age, and adventurous adulthood from her first-person point of view. She became famous online after her work as a dominatrix in the East Village was publicly exposed. Instead of giving in to this attempted public humiliation, Fox claimed her story in her subsequent artistic publications. In 2015, she self-published her first photography book, Symptomatic of a Relationship Gone Sour: Heartburn/Nausea, and in 2016, she self-published her second photography book, PTSD. She went on to exhibit her visual art series, R.I.P. Julia Fox, at a New York gallery. The show famously featured canvases splattered with Fox’s blood. These personal and creative endeavors established her as an artist in her own right.