.jpg?width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "Two United Airlines planes collide on New York’s LaGuardia tarmac following day of ground stops and wind alerts – UK Times")
Julia Fox has defended her controversial Jackie Kennedy costume after being met with backlash.
The actor, 35, modeled a blood-stained replica of the famous pink suit that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was wearing when her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated while riding next to her in a motorcade in 1963.
Pictures of Fox posing in the outfit at a New York City Halloween party Thursday quickly went viral, with social media users slamming the costume as “insensitive.”
“That’s sick and disgusting!” one criticized on X as another wrote, “She calls herself a feminist but wants to mock a woman during what was probably the most traumatic moment of her life. Interesting.”
The Kennedys’ own grandson, Jack Schlossberg, shared a post saying, “Julia Fox glorifying political violence is disgusting, desperate and dangerous. I’m sure her late grandmother would agree.”
However, Fox said in a statement that she was dressing as Onassis “not as a costume, but as a statement.”
“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. Beauty and horror. Poise and devastation.”
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. It’s about trauma, power, and how femininity itself is a form of resistance.”
She concluded her statement, “Long live Jackie O.” The former first lady died at 64 in 1994.
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 pronounced dead.
Onassis refused to change out of her blood-stained clothes and said she regretted washing the blood off her face and hands. She was quoted at the time as saying she wanted “them to see what they have done to Jack.”
Hours after the assassination, she wore the bloody outfit as she stood next to vice president Lyndon B. Johnson while he was sworn in aboard Air Force One.
Even with Fox’s detained explanation of her tribute, fans were unconvinced that it was honoring Onassis, especially after the late first lady’s rose garden was recently paved over in the new White House renovations.
