July 25 is a pivotal day in Alex lore, I’ll show you.
The final page of Alexa's book 'It' confused many. What did it mean? What was the point? Here it is:
The Guardian reviewer said: “Then more (and more) of the same, followed by photos of "Fuck you!" and "The End" written in the sand and… well, that's your lot for 17 quid. Kerching! Or should that be Ker-Chung?”
However, for those who followed Alexa, they’d seen the "fuck you" photo posted before.
Alexa had posted the image to Instagram on July 25, 2012.
And in case you think it’s merely random, a coincidence or whimsical, per her twitter, Alexa was in Manhattan that day and not near a beach.
So, what’s the significance of July 25? It was the one year anniversary of Alex supposedly ending things with Alexa before he flew off to Japan.
How do we know that? Well, Alexa’s publicist confirmed the split on July 31st.
On 26 July, Alexa accepts the job to host 24 hour catwalk.
On 27 July, Alexa who is still in London buys her apartment in New York. I won’t link it here but NYC property records are public.
This is more circumstantial, but Alexa posted on twitter 46 times between July 2-July 24. After July 24 she doesn’t post for a week, when she posts once on July 31. And then not again until she arrives in NY on August 8. At a minimum it seems to confirm that July 25 was significant. If you’ve followed enough celebrity breakups, it’s not uncommon for the person dumped to go silent on socials for a few days.
How can we know who ended the relationship? Obviously, we can’t, but we can make inferences, (personally I would argue that Alexa makes that plain in her book but I’ve seen you both state you don’t think her book is dispositive).
Alexa is at both AM’s Don Valley shows on the 10th and 11 of June and is also in attendance at their Paris gig on the 16th. She takes many photos with fans, tweets about being there, has friends post photos of her backstage. They’re still a couple.
We know from the breakup articles that they’re supposedly not speaking at the itunes festival on the 6th of July in London.
This makes sense because Alexa had tweeted to fans that she would be at AM’s performance at the Benicassim festival on the 16th of July and she didn’t go – so something has happened between Paris on the 16th and London on the 6th.
We know from Alexa that they’re still together after the 28th though. Alexa is interviewed for October’s Harper’s Bazaar and the interviewer mentions that Alexa had already dj’d the Serpentine Summer Gallery Party which took place on the 28th.
Alexa brings Alex up of her own volition:
Would someone with Alexa’s media savvy really be mentioning Alex so favorably in an interview that takes place some time between June 29 and July 5 if she was seriously contemplating dumping Alex by the 6th?
I think Alexa is far too media savvy for that, and her PR rep Liz Matthews is also notoriously involved in her interviews declaring what topics are and are not permitted. If Alexa is within a week of ending her celebrity relationship, she’s not going to speak about him on record for a magazine due out in 3 months.
However, people have arguments, things happen, revelations are made, just because Alexa is feeling good about Alex then doesn’t mean something couldn’t happen to change her mind in the ensuing days, but I think it at least indicates she is not expecting this relationship to end imminently.
I’d also argue that if Alexa was the one to initiate the split during this period you would expect to see some movement on her accepting her job now. Alexa had filmed her audition for 24 hour catwalk in February. It is to begin shooting in August. If you know anything about television production and the trade announcements in the industry this is an exceptionally long time to be mulling your decision. And there is more to it than merely ‘the presenter wants it delayed’, there are insurance implications that equal real dollars at stake.
I think we can probably assume that if Alexa is contemplating taking time off it is likely due to pressure from Alex who doesn’t want to go months without seeing her. The Suck It And See Tour is slated to be long – longer than any of their 3 previous tours.
But let’s say Alexa decides ultimately, she is unwilling to accede to Alex’s wishes, and she wants to prioritize her career and take the job. That still begs the question why she would speak so enthusiastically about Alex in an interview days before they’re supposedly not talking in a magazine article not due for publication for months. I find it unlikely.
If she made the decision between June 28th and July 6th (when they’re not speaking) to take the job and dump Alex, why is there no press release about her accepting the tv job in the period 6 July to July 26? TV executives want this news out there as quick as possible. Why not buy her NY apartment on July 8, 15 or 21? The press isn’t paying that close attention that they’d know or suspect it meant to imminent dissolution of a celebrity couple.
The most plausible answer I believe is she only took the job after Alex ended things. The neat sequence; July 25 - relationships ends. July 26 - job accepted. July 27 - apartment bought makes little sense if she had decided between June 28 and July 5 to end things.
Did Alexa even want the job? Alexa had done reality tv as part of her Channel 4 contract in 2008 (Vanity Lair) and hated the experience. She didn’t like the show but also felt it diminished her ‘brand’ to be associated with reality tv. After Alexa arrived back in America but before the show even aired she was already suggesting ambivalence about the show:
This doesn’t sound like the type of career opportunity one ends a 4+ year relationship for.
In an interview conducted in August for Teen Vogue’s October 2011 cover, Alexa says about her new life in New York: "Right now is a real turning point. Everything I thought I knew is no longer. I think this is the year I have to grow up."
Another question if you’re still disbelieving, ask this; if Alexa decided to end things with Alex to take the job because she wanted to prioritize her career then why is the sentiment she is publishing “Fuck you” on the anniversary of their split!? If you end a 4-year relationship with someone and break their heart to prioritize yourself and your ambitions your sentiment is more likely to be “sorry” or something less damning. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course, she could have ended things with Alex for other reasons beyond her career. Perhaps Alex had done something to make her hate him, but then again, we have enough quotes from Alexa, coupled with her social media behavior and her willingness to get back with him in 2014 to assume she didn’t hate him. She appears to have resented him, which is different. Also, if Alexa dumped Alex because he cheated the timeline would be different. They’re not speaking on July 6, she doesn’t attend the Benicassim Festival on July 16 as she said on twitter she would – so why would the anniversary of their split be July 25?
Well, maybe she simply decided they no longer worked, had different values and their preferred lifestyles were not aligned. She’s an extroverted person who wants to spend her nights out, he’s an introverted homebody; maybe that’s the reason. Perfectly reasonable, but why then would you commemorate the anniversary of the split by saying “fuck you”?
If you watch this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mq-6xj4c-I) with Alexa about her book at the 3:15 mark she says that her book ‘It’ “represented something else I had to get through” and her tone and intonation is clear what that is – her breakup.
I think it’s clear that Alexa did not randomly select July 25 to post her ‘Fuck you’ message. She obviously had it prepared. She also did not randomly select the image that would end her book. How you end a book is often a thesis statement. The book, as she said, “represented something” she had to “get through” and the culmination of that book is a coded, but unmistakable, “fuck you” to Alex.
I figure once you’ve committed to writing something this extensive (and depending on your point of view, crazy) you may as well go all in, so I’ll add a few more points unrelated to July 25, but interesting nonetheless. I was inspired to write this up after reading a recent discussion of the ‘factual history’ vs snarcticmonkeys timeline you had. Both posts ironically have the same problem; each imagine the relationship as dominated by one person; ‘factual history’ thinks Alexa was obsessed and Alex wielded power whilst Snarctics thinks Alex loved Alexa more and Alexa had all the power. I don’t know how either can claim to know this and I assume both loved each other. I am more sympathetic to the ‘factual history’ only insofar as it relies on some of the same 2011-2014 tumblr lore I believe.
The Snarctics timeline, which believes Alex/Alexa were an on/off couple relies heavily on a quote from Alexa in 2022 where she spoke about going on Joan Rivers show in 2010 whilst she was single – the problem is Alexa simply misremembered the dates; she went on in January 2012. Alexa and Alexa were with each other right up until (and including) the first week of AM recording Suck it and See in Los Angeles in January. There are many photos of Alex attending fashion events or dj gigs with Alexa in NY from June-September. Alexa submitted a photo of Alex on the beach in the Caribbean taken on October 19 to Lula Mag, they attend the Submarine premiere together a few days later, the pairing skeleton Halloween costumes a week later, her birthday photos etc. they are spotted together in Sheffield in the new year. Alexa mentions recently meeting Alex’s grandmother in February interview. They weren’t on/off.
To undermine what I just said about them not being ‘on and off’ I do think they were likely on a break or something from late March-maybe late April. It’d take too long to delve into here – I wanted a tight focus on July 25 and the weeks leading up to it – but the old rumor was always they’d split in late March after Alexa arrived back from Paris and Seoul. Beginning in late March Alexa stops wearing Alex’s ring, she’d been wearing it up till then:
The other claim the snarcticmonkeys post makes is that Alexa was largely unaffected by the split until Alex moved on with Arielle. However, Alexa was already making heartbreak compilations before Alex had been seen with Arielle. This is from September 22. I think it’s a mistake to read too much into any songs but multiple songs here are from a female pov and about coming to terms with heartbreak and loneliness after having been left.
Snarctic etc. suggest Alexa amplified her heartbreak for book sales but if you read Alexa interviews in this era or followed her on social media she was not hiding how she was struggling emotionally. I don’t post any of this to make fun of Alexa but to show she was often very publicly heartbroken, and I don’t think she “peddled heartbreak as a marketing gimmick”. I agree these posts don't prove who ended the relationship but I think they humanize Alexa who is often spoken of in cold or superior terms in her relationship with Alex and also show that her heartbreak wasn't a "advertising gimmick".
Alexa went to the Caribbean with Tennessee for her 28th birthday trip which she dubbed a ‘heartbreak trip’ in an essay for Vogue. Here are some tweets from her time away.
This is Alexa speaking in December 2011 for the March 2012 Elle issue:
This is Alexa in December 2011 after a night of posting heartbreak songs:
One of many similarly themed Alexa dj cds she posted in summer 2012:
September 28, 2012 – the 12 month anniversary of Alex being papped with Arielle has Alexa posting this to Instagram:
Alexa including ‘Stuck On a Puzzle’ on her Refinery 29 Playlist in October 2012;
And lastly, for some comic relief; Alex and Alexa first hung out post-split at the 2013 GQ Man of the Year Awards; they went back to Miles’ house. The Next day, Pixie Geldof is taking shots at Alex and posting this:
Regardless of where people end up on all this I thought I’d try type up some of the old fandom lore to try and coincide with the anniversary of the July 25 post.
I don’t pretend this is authoritative or ‘the final word’ – I’m sure there are many things I’m wrong about which is the point of a ‘shit-talk’. Hopefully I at least made the case for July 25 being meaningful in the fandom and perhaps showed some people some old lore they were unaware of. And maybe some of this info gives insight into why most of the fandom in the 'peak tumblr era' thought Alex had ended things with Alexa.
Interesting read. I still think it’s not definitive as to who broke up with whom from all of this but you make your case for July 25th! Interesting
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