Grace Jones is slightly coming for your faves in her new memoir, reminding everyone who indeed did it first.
The 67 year old icon will soon be releasing her autobiography titled, “I’ll Never Write My Memoirs” and she discusses some of the copy cats she’s seen rise to fame. In an excerpt from the book she says “Trends come along and people say, ‘Follow that trend,’ There’s a lot of that around at the moment: ‘Be like Sasha Fierce. Be like Miley Cyrus. Be like Rihanna. Be like Lady Gaga. Be like Rita Ora and Sia. Be like Madonna.’ I cannot be like them — except to the extent that they are already being like me. I have been so copied by those people who have made fortunes that 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.”
Most wouldn’t consider that shade, but if you’re an up and coming female star, Jones has some choice words.
“They dress up as though they are challenging the status quo, but by now, wearing those clothes, pulling those faces, revealing those tattoos and breasts, singing to those fractured, spastic, melting beats – that is the status quo.
“You are not off the beaten track, pushing through the thorny undergrowth, finding treasure no one has come across before.”
“You are in the middle of the road. You are really in Vegas wearing the sparkly full-length gown singing to people who are paying to see you but are not really paying attention. If that is what you want, fine, but it’s a road to nowhere.”
She then calls out Rihanna and others for copying her style.
“Rihanna… she does the body-painting thing I did with Keith Haring, but where he painted directly on my body, she wears a painted bodysuit,” she explains. “That’s the difference. Mine is on skin; she puts a barrier between the paint and her skin. I don’t even know if she knows that what she’s doing comes from me, but I bet you the people styling her know. They know the history.”
There’s one star that Grace dubs as “Doris,” but makes no mention of who Doris really is.
“I look at Doris and I think: Does she look happy? She looks lost, like she is desperately trying to find the person she was when she started,” the actress and singer writes. “She looks like really she knows she is in Vegas, now that Vegas is the whole entertainment world filtered through the internet, through impatient social media. I don’t mind her dressing up, but when she started to dance like Madonna, almost immediately, copying someone else, it was like she had forgotten what it was about her that could be unique. Ultimately, it is all about prettiness and comfort, however much they pretend they are being provocative.”
“The problem with the Dorises and the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly,” she cautions. “There is no long-term vision, and they forget that once you get into that whirlpool then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent. There will always be a replacement coming along very soon – a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven’t got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday’s event.”
Arguably Grace Jones was one of the most iconic, most innovative highly copied singers/actress/models in American history — but does she have a point here?
Grace’s book will be available on September 24. Will you be getting it?
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