Fulvia's birth into an important political dynasty facilitated her relationships and, later on, marriages to Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Scribonius Curio, and Mark Antony. According to him, while Fulvia and Clodius were married, Antony once left a military post to sneak back into Rome during the night and personally deliver a love letter to Fulvia describing his love for her and how he had stopped seeing the famous actress Cytheris. Fulvia played a very influential role in Mark Antony's political career. Throughout their marriage, Fulvia defended Antony from Cicero's attacks, sustained his popularity with his soldiers and hindered Octavian's ascension to power. Antony had attained possession of Caesar's papers, and with the ability to produce papers in support of any law, Fulvia and Antony made a fortune and gained immense power. To solidify the political alliance, Fulvia's daughter Claudia was married to the young Octavian. Although many ancient sources wrote that Fulvia was happy to take revenge against Cicero for Antony's and Clodius' sake, Cassius Dio is the only one who describes the joy with which she pierced the tongue of the dead Cicero with her golden hairpins, as a final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.

Lepidus took the west and Antony went to Egypt, where he met Cleopatra VII. Octavian returned to Rome in 41 BC to dispense land to Caesar's veterans, divorced Fulvia's daughter and accused Fulvia of aiming at supreme power. With Octavian in Italy and Antony abroad, Fulvia allied with her brother-in-law Lucius Antonius and publicly endorsed Mark Antony in opposition to Octavian. According to Appian, Fulvia was a central cause of the war, due to her jealousy of Antony and Cleopatra's affair in Egypt; she may have escalated the tensions between Octavian and Lucius in order to draw back Antony's attention to Italy. Together with Lucius Antonius, Fulvia raised eight legions in Italy to fight for Antony's rights against Octavian, an event known as the Perusine War. According to Appian, she "Urged Ventidius, Asinius, and Calenus from Gaul to help Lucius, and having gathered another army, she sent it to Lucius under the command of Plancus." During the war, Octavian's soldiers at Perusia used sling bullets inscribed with insults directed at Fulvia personally and Octavian wrote a vulgar epigram directed at her in 40 BC, referring to Antony's affair with the ex-courtesan queen of Cappadocia Glaphyra. Spiteful censor of the Latin Language, read six insolent verses of Caesar Augustus: "Because Antony fucks Glaphyra, Fulvia has arranged this punishment for me: that I fuck her too. That I fuck Fulvia? What if Manius begged me to bugger him? Would I? I don't think so, if I were sane"Either fuck or fight", she says. Antony then sailed back to Rome to deal with Octavian, and Fulvia died of an unknown illness in exile in Sicyon, near Corinth, Achaea. According to Plutarch, "There was even more opportunity for a reconciliation with Caesar. For when Antony reached Italy, and Caesar manifestly intended to make no charges against him, and Antony himself was ready to put upon Fulvia the blame for whatever was charged against himself." After Fulvia's death, Antony married Octavian's sister, Octavia Minor, to publicly demonstrate his reconciliation with Octavian.