Bow down, ladies! Thanks to Time Out London, bits of Grace Jones‘ upcoming memoir, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, are the talk of the Internet right now, as they take aim at basically every pop diva who has followed in her audacious footsteps.
Going in hard on Billboard’s top players, Jones, 67, writes, “The problem with… the Nicki Minajes and Mileys is that they reach their goal very quickly. There is no long-term vision. 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.”
As for her specific words for Rihanna, Jones writes, “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.”
The Grammy-nominated singer, who’s also dabbled in acting, including in the 1985 Bond film A View to a Kill, adds, “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.”
Jones also writes a bit about a pop star she gives the pseudonym “Doris,” who wanted to collaborate with the icon, only to get shut down. “Everyone around me is going: ‘You have to do it, it will be so good for you, it will introduce you to a whole new audience, you will make a lot of money,'” she said. “No! It will be good for her; she will draw from everything I have built and add it to her brand, and I will get nothing back except for a little temporary attention.”
According to Jones, “Doris” is now, “a baby in a closet full of other people’s clothes, a little girl playing dress-up, putting on shoes that don’t fit… She looks lost, like she is desperately trying to find the person she was when she started.”
And in between all of that, Jones offers one big slaying: “Trends come along and people say, ‘Follow that trend’. There’s a lot of that around at the moment: ‘Be like Sasha Fierce (Beyonce). 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.”
Jones also calls out Katy Perry, Kanye West, and FKA twigs in the snippet.
Do you agree with Jones’ take on today’s pop stars? Tweet with @UsWeekly using the hashtag #stylebyUs!
