7 Fascinating Facts About Monica Warhol

Everyone has gotten themselves all in a tizzy over Kanye West supposedly hiring Andy Warhol's cousin, Monica Warhol, to paint Kim Kardashian. Because "Omg! Kimye is so full of themselves! What fools!" Well, according to Kim's reps, Kanye didn't actually commission the artist which means, one, stop blaming everything on Kanye and let him rant about Zappos and Louis Vuitton and leather jogging pants in peace, and two, Monica clearly just wanted to go ahead and paint Kim because of all that stuff she said about Kim being "beautiful," "manufactured," and a "human Barbie." I've seen a million pictures and read tons of stories about Kimye, but I've never heard anything about Andy Warhol's cousin who lives in Arizona, copies his style of work, and maybe has an obsession with Kim Kardashian. So, to me, it seems that the artist, not the subject, is the more intriguing part of this story. Here are the seven most interesting things about Monica Warhol.

1. She believes she's carrying on Andy's legacy.

Don't tell Kanye — he thinks Kim is the new Marilyn Monroe and this really supports that theory — but I agree with Monica here. Andy Warhol was obsessed with fame and pop culture and those are two things that Kim, without a doubt, currently represents. Monica says,

I am picking up where Andy left off, and Kim is the perfect addition to the Warhol legacy...There is no way Andy Warhol would not have painted her. Kim is manufactured gorgeous and is beyond fabulous. How could Andy not have been inspired to paint her like he did Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor?

2. She maybe isn't related to Andy Warhol...

I don't know how to put this, and maybe I should just take the lady's word for it, but something about her makes me suspicious that she's actually related to Andy Warhol. For instance, on her website she repeatedly writes things like "Monica Warhol is a visual artist of the famed Warhol family" and her Twitter bio reads, "YES. I am related." Would you really need to push that so hard if it were true? Also, isn't it weird that she would copy her cousin's style directly? I would think that, in her position, I'd want to let his art be his art and leave it alone.

3. But maybe she is...

On the other hand, she, like Andy, seems totally obsessed with fame and if this was the influence she's following of her cousin's life work, then that would explain it. She also seems like she wants herself to be famous. Maybe she was obsessed with Andy and he was obsessed with fame and now it's all turned in on itself and it makes perfect sense that she'd copy his ideas. Maybe Andy would be totally on board with that because it's another layer to his thoughts on pop art. Oh art! You are so overwhelming.

4. She takes a lot of selfies.

I wonder if Andy Warhol would've been a fan of the selfie were he around today. Monica sure is. Something about her's seem really self-promotional (the massive about of hashtags, perhaps?) which is fine, but it supports my she-wants-the-fame-for-herself theory.

5. She painted Flo Rida.

Flo Rida is not someone I imagine Andy Warhol would've painted, but what Flo Rida wants, Flo Rida gets. The rapper commissioned Monica to paint him earlier this year. I love his quote: "I saw all her fine paintings, and I was like, I need one of these!" I hope to one day say exactly this before purchasing art.

6. She might get her own reality show.

On Monica's site it says she's developing a reality show about her art and her life with her six children and fiancé. So, yeah, she might be a budding, more artistic, Kris Jenner. Watch out world.

7. She claims to have not seen Andy's work until a year ago.

In an interview with Page Six, Monica mentioned that she never actually met Andy, which makes sense since she was 10 when he passed, but she goes on to say, “I never studied Andy. I never owned a book about him until about a year ago." Meaning after she already started making art. In the same style as him. That sounds suspicious to me, but maybe she has a loose definition of "studied." Surely she saw her famous cousin's work. Everyone has!

In the end, I don't really know what to believe about Monica, but I definitely find her mysterious (or maybe not so mysterious...?) life more interesting than another Kanye rant.

Images: Monica Warhol/Instagram