Julia Fox has responded to the criticism she faced after quipping last week that her ex-boyfriend, Kanye West, was “harmless”.

Last Thursday (March 17), the actress was approached by TMZ to weigh in on an animated video for West’s recent single ‘Eazy’ – a collaborative effort with The Game, released back in January – which shows a caricature of West kidnapping and brutalising Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson (who is currently dating West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian).

Asked if she thinks Kardashian and Davidson should be worried about their safety, Fox – who briefly dated West earlier this year – responded: “No, Kanye’s harmless!” She dismissed the violent scenes in West’s video as “artistic expression”, and although she agreed that his behaviour comes off as “aggressive”, Fox said the rapper’s perceived threats are “nothing more than talk”.

“I think if it really came down to it,” she continued, “I don’t think Kanye would hurt a fly.”

Fox’s comments proved controversial on social media, with some responders opining that she’d been dismissive of West’s perceived harassment towards Kardashian and Davidson. According to TMZ, Fox has now addressed that criticism in a post briefly made available on Instagram, claiming she was unaware of West’s recent attacks on Davidson, Kardashian and their supporters through his own social media pages.

“I would like to point out that I had not seen the latest Instagram posts at the time of this video,” Fox is said to have written in her post. “Believe it or not I have a life and a son, and I don’t have Google alerts for this man!”

Fox went on to clarify that she’d believed she was only addressing the ‘Eazy’ video when the aforementioned TMZ reporter approached her, and that she felt obliged to make her comments over pressure from her followers.

She continued: “I thought this question was in reference to the music video. Yeah I could just not answer questions but then it would be ‘Julia is mad she salty’ etc and I’m not! It’s a real catch 22 so please stop F’n asking me! I wish I had the answers, but I do not. I would like to remain an Indie Queen. The mainstream life isn’t for me.”

Earlier this month, West released another version of the ‘Eazy’ video. This time, the skinned monkey from the single’s cover art is seen attacking Davidson, pinning down a blurred-out avatar of the actor and comedian, and walloping him with a string of punches.

Davidson later responded to West, writing in a leaked text exchange: “I’ve decided I’m not gonna let you treat us like this anymore and I’m done being quiet.” After Kanye said he was “happy to see [him] out of the hospital and rehab,” Davidson said: “Same here. It’s wonders what those places do when you go get help. You should try it.”

Last week saw West’s Instagram account temporarily suspended, with a Meta representative claiming the rapper’s recent posts violated policies on hate speech, bullying and harassment. At the time of writing, West is yet to make any new posts on the platform.

In addition, it’s been reported that West had a planned performance at the 2022 Grammys cancelled over his “concerning online behaviour”. The 2022 Grammys are set to be hosted by Trevor Noah – a racist post about the comedian led to West being suspended from Instagram – though it’s not been confirmed whether the incident was part of the decision to remove West’s performance from the ceremony.