Misunderstanding Grace Jones: How one moment changed everything
“The music is just so good,” says one trusty fan, probably brushing off a questionable comment made by one of their favourite white male musicians. “It’s just who he is!” a joke misunderstood by most but defended by those who insist he doesn’t mean it that way. But, whenever Grace Jones challenged situations or said things that earned shocked gasps from the audience, she was branded “unapologetic”.
In all fairness, that’s exactly what Jones is. Unafraid to say whatever it is she’s thinking at any given moment, not just asking for basic respect but for people to actually honour her requests and boundaries when it comes to how she wants things to be. Once, she refused to perform at a corporate show she’d been booked for because they didn’t pay her upfront. They begged, but she still didn’t set a single foot on that stage.
Some would have called her something akin to “difficult talent”, an inconvenience that ruined the whole organisation of the event. For others, she’s someone who knows who she is and what she wants. So why, then, when she slapped a host live on TV, was it seen as acting out, an abrasive reaction to nothing, or something someone without any social skills would pull off, rather than an enraged, oppressed Black woman setting boundaries and letting others know the situation wasn’t quite right?
We’ve established that Jones is known for being someone who, quite bluntly, doesn’t take shit from anyone. She also goes at her own pace, knowing her wants and needs are worth the time. Once, she was late to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wedding because she wanted to get changed into a green Azzedine Alaïa dress at the airport, with all eyes on them the moment they finally burst into the ceremony like the stars of the show exercising a little dose of fashionably late.
“Quick! Let’s make love before we die,” she sings on ‘Warm Leatherette’, oozing the collected demeanour of someone who’s always been completely in control of her own moment, commanding and demanding even as a force against those who pay no mind or refuse to buy into her energy. There probably isn’t any other moment in the history of iconic Jones moments than her appearance alongside host Russell Harty in 1981, when his intense dismissiveness pushed her to get physical.
We all know how it played out and why—Jones felt so ignored, so exhausted, and so pissed off that Harty’s attitude pushed her over the edge (“It was the final straw”). It seemed, to some, a moment played up for the camera but very real to a very frustrated Jones, who just couldn’t take it anymore. And, as we know, if a situation starts to become something Jones isn’t happy with, she’ll either remove herself or make it known.
But aside from the details of the televised stint, one other thing came to the forefront, and that’s how much people saw it as merely another entry on some late-night sensationalist compilation of the 500 greatest TV moments of all time or a fleeting few minutes where audiences feel temporarily engaged in something they’ve never seen before without thinking about why, exactly, it might have panned out that way.
Jones was even asked back on the show, their producers evidently enthralled with how much their ratings soared, hoping for another dual showing of the two parties making light of the tension that fell upon them in the first instance. It planted the seed for a longer-running joke between the two, something that could easily pull audiences in, wondering whether it was real or a complete set-up. It was amusing to many because it was so unexpected. But Jones wasn’t laughing.
She wasn’t about to make the one decision that would dismiss all her respectability and dignity when all the implied undertones of the situation were brushed off for mere trivialism and ratings. Perhaps that’s the difference between Jones and the countless others who seem to avoid criticisms when they’ve made it clear they’re feeling a certain way: there’s a weight to everything she does, and it’s never for the purpose of media pandering.
“When he did turn around and look at me, I started to see Mas P [her step-grandfather] in his face, and an irritable expression that seemed to say, ‘women are the root of all evil’,” she later relayed, adding, “Harty was rude. I wasn’t going to put up with it. I lashed out on live television. It takes balls to do that, which could be seen as a little crazy. And then they tried to get me back on the show! The ratings soared. I had done him a favour. They wanted a rematch. It was all so tacky.”
