Model, singer-songwriter, actor and pop culture icon Grace Jones is headlining Love Motion festival on July 26, her second UK performance this year.
An artist who has lived an extraordinary life, Jones grew up in a strict religious family in Jamaica, before moving with them to Syracuse as a young teen.
It’s there that she began a lifelong process of liberation, which has included numerous love affairs, wild parties (many of them at the legendary New York disco spot Studio 54), famous friends, public fights, drug experimentation, album releases, and the creation of some of the world’s most iconic photographs.
Now in her Seventies – although Jones has changed her birth date so many times that no one really knows – the singer continues to inspire, with fans loving her as much for her iconic style as for her outrageous behaviour, rejection of gender norms, and zany perspectives. To give just a few examples, she “doesn’t believe in time”, thinks she could be a cat, says she once turned into a helicopter, enjoys claiming that she’s 5,000 years old, and is obsessed with making jigsaw puzzles.
Just days before her headlining act, here are some of the singer’s most iconic quotes. Some are frustratingly contradictory, others startling, others rather sage. All depict the vivid character of an extraordinary woman.
On her mindset:
“I have always been my own psychotherapist since I was very young. I would stand outside myself and talk to myself, talk through whatever was bothering me. There’s a schizophrenic element to it, but I have accepted that part of me since an early age.” Her memoir, titled, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
“I grew up using my imagination to make reality work for me. In order to make a connection with reality, I made up a world where I could live.” I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
“Crying is not a weakness. It’s something that should be able to work for you. It should also be a strength. I think if you can cry when you feel like crying it’s a strength. If you feel like crying and you can’t cry, that’s a weakness.” Interview, 2014.
“I can’t be bought and people hate that. Everybody has their price – but not me.” The Guardian, 2015.
On the benefits of sex:
“Forget health clinics and gyms. Sex is the best cure. One good night of sex and your problems are gone.” Source unknown.
“People would rather do violence than talk about sex. You see it everywhere in the world.” The Guardian, 2015.
On race:
“I don’t think in colour…. If you think in colour, then everyone around you is going to think in colour and that puts limits on the way you think. I don’t think like that. A lot of the roles that I’m doing are roles that a man or a person of any colour can do.” Interview, 2014
On partying:
“I don’t party now, and nobody really knows how to party with me anymore. So I stay in a lot. I really am a home person. I like to have my own little parties at home, especially now because where is there to go?” Daily Mail, 2008
“I don’t like to talk at parties. Dancing is the most important thing for me. I tell people: ‘Don’t try and talk to me, let me dance!’ I’ve always been like this. I used to go to Tramps in London years ago with, y’know, Duran Duran, Christopher Walken and De Niro. I’d just tell the DJ what to play and dance.” Time Out, 2017.
On self-worth:
“If you are lonely when you are alone, you’re in bad company.” I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
“One boyfriend told me that I loved myself too much. I thought, well, you can love a boyfriend too much, but you can’t love yourself too much. Sometimes you have to love yourself to keep yourself whole.” I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
On politics:
“I believe that every presidential candidate should see a psychiatrist before they’re allowed to stand.” The Guardian, 2017.
On relationships:
“I never ask for anything in a relationship because I have this sugar daddy I have created for myself: me. I am my own sugar daddy. I have a very strong male side, which I developed to protect my female side. If I want a diamond necklace I can go and buy myself a diamond necklace.” I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
“I don’t believe in marriage because I don’t believe in divorce. If I had been married, I would have been divorced about five or six times already.” The Tonight Show.
On her appearance:
“I’ve always thought maybe I was a cat. I sort of have cat eyes. They don’t really go with my face. That’s what they used to tell me when I started modeling. That’s why I didn’t get many jobs. They’d say, ‘Your nose doesn’t match your eyes and your eyes don’t match your lips. Where the hell do you come from? What are you?’ So I figured I must have been some kind of cat.” The Joan Rivers Show
“Sometimes I feel like, ‘Oh, my tummy is a bit fat there!’ It’s a good feeling to let that go, because I’m a prisoner of vanity. It has made me a stronger person, to look beyond this idea that everything has to be perfect.” The documentary, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, 2017.
“I’m a nudist. Anybody who knows me gets used to that. When I do shows, I’m always naked around my crew and my manager, and when I was a model everyone would be naked backstage.” Time Out, 2017.
On gender:
“I think the men that embrace their female side are the stronger men.” W Magazine, 2018
“ I like dressing like a guy. I love it…. The future is no sex. You can be a boy, a girl, whatever you want. I have a lot of man in me.” Interview Magazine, 2014
“I go feminine, I go masculine. I am both, actually. I think the male side is a bit stronger in me, and I have to tone it down sometimes. I’m not like a normal woman, that’s for sure.” BBC, 2015.
“Only you know how you feel inside regardless of what name is put on it. Some people are both genders. I think you just come out the way you come out and you have to embrace it honestly.” Dazed, 2015.
On her infamous slapping of TV host Russell Harty:
“I still laugh about that, but I was seriously upset by him ignoring me. What I really wanted to do was tilt him over in his chair. But I thought, you’re gonna end up in jail, you’re gonna break his neck, you’re gonna kill him on air!” The Guardian, 2015.
On LSD:
“LSD gave me a lot of insight and sensitivity about what is happening 360 degrees around me. I plugged into all of it. I’m not sure if it’s just the LSD, but it gave me a sixth sense of awareness.” Dazed, 2015.
On ageing:
“I don’t know what ‘mature’ means. I still keep my mind open. It’s not stagnant. I’m still very childlike, and I keep a certain naïveté as far as being able to receive information. Once you think you’re mature and you know everything, then you don’t put up the antenna, it’s no longer out there receiving for you.” Interview, 2014.
“People stress too much about ageing and that makes them age.” The Guardian, 2015
“This society dwells too much on that [age]. It becomes like a brainwashing for people. My body feels – I mean, I became a helicopter not that long ago. If that makes any sense to you. It makes sense to me... I just say I’m 5,000 years old.” Vanity Fair, 2022.
On changing her mind:
“If you are a fan of doing the unexpected, and I am, then it is an advantage to being highly skilled at changing your mind. If you do not want to limit yourself, then be prepared to change your mind – often.” Source unknown.
On feminism:
“I don’t consider myself a feminist. I don’t put labels on things, really. I stand up always for being a human. The fact that I am a woman gives more power to it, but I stand up for being a human being. I don’t like the fact that women should be this way and stay in their place. I’m more than a feminist. I believe we are stronger. Women are stronger.” W Magazine, 2018
“Politically, I am a feminist. In Jamaica I grew up with very strong women. A lot of them are the judges, for example. The men are the lions and the women are the lionesses. But just because you are a strong woman doesn’t mean you are feminist. Personally, I think the women deserve more than the men. It’s true. We can do a lot more than men can do. In fact, we do do a lot more than men.” Dazed, 2015.
“You can tell why there are so few female film directors. It’s the same with any job that society had decided can only be done by a man: They find ways to undermine and undervalue a woman doing that job... It’s the same old caveman shit, a power thing. It’s why I want to f*** every man in the ass at least once.” I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, 2015.
On musical collaboration and younger acts:
“I don’t collaborate. You’re born alone, you die alone, you get on stage alone. I’m better as a loner... I collaborated with Pavarotti [at a charity concert in 2002] because I love him and I could stretch myself and do opera. It’s going to add another thing to me. Lady Gaga isn’t going to do anything for me; it’ll do everything for her. I’m not there to validate anyone – validate yourself.” Evening Standard, 2010.
"I have been so copied by those people who have made fortunes, people assume I am that rich. But I did things for the excitement, the dare, the fact that it was new, not for the money, and too many times I was the first, not the beneficiary." I’ll Never Write My Memoir, 2015.
On her strict upbringing:
"I grew up with three brothers around me, so I grew up as a tomgirl. I had to fight with them, had to play with them, had to be as fierce as them, compete with them – and win. Skirts were always like a problem for me because I wanted to stand on my hands all the time to compete in their games. I was beaten because my panties were always showing.” Stuff Magazine, 2017.
“My brother used to get beaten up all the time because he was very effeminate. Hiding, secrets, and not being able to be yourself is one of the worst things ever for a person. It gives you low self-esteem. You never get to reach that peak in your life. You should always be able to be yourself, and be proud of yourself.” Dazed, 2015.
On her greatest achievements:
“My son, Paulo Goude, is my greatest achievement. He’s a songwriter, producer and incredible musician – and my beautiful granddaughter, too.” The Guardian, 2022.
On modelling today:
“I’m glad I’m not doing it now. I’d probably be dead. Everybody’s so skinny. Size zero is like the walking dead. Not sexy at all. When I modelled, I would normally be a model size six, eight, though my shoulders are wide, it’s hard to make them fit into things. Now I can’t get into model sizes, because they’re really small.” The Guardian, 2017.
On being an artist:
“I’d say I’m flexible within the world of art. I see art in everything. But it’s about making it better, creating something, growing out of nothing. I’m not finished by a long shot. That’s what drives me. I’m just following a calling, basically.” Los Angeles Times, 2018
