Grace Jones: True Crime Magnet. Eighties Icon.

Grace Jones was one of the era-defining multihyphenates of the 1980s, an icon of the music, fashion, and movie worlds. From Jamaica to Studio 54, she broke down barriers and smashed glass ceilings at every turn – but she was also a magnet for true crime in the process. She was arrested numerous times. She was set up, the victim of a home invasion, and she wielded a loaded gun in order to get her way. At the height of her fame, she found herself fighting to defend her honor and her truth in the face of serious jail time. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is exactly right.

• 0:13Speaker 01

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• 0:42Speaker 02

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• 1:15Jake Brennan?

  I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information.

• 1:53Jake Brennan?

  Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

• 2:07Jake Brennan?

  The stories about Grace Jones are fascinating. She was a true crime magnet. Arrested, set up, invaded. She was a global superstar, an actor, model, a multi-hyphenate icon of the 1980s, as big in attention-grabbing as Max Headroom in New Coke, and she of course, made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron, called "New Kind of Bond Girl MK1." I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "The Look" by Roxette.

• 2:50Jake Brennan?

  And why would I play you that specific slice of platinum flat-top cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number-one song in America on April 8, 1989. And that was the day Grace Jones was arrested and thrown into a Jamaican jail cell, where she feared that her incredible life up to this point might be coming to a quick end. On this episode, an arrest, a setup, a home invasion, and 80s icon and true crime magnet Grace Jones. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace Land.

• 4:01Jake Brennan?

  April 1, 1989, Stony Hill, Jamaica.

• 4:06Jake Brennan?

  Forty-year-old Grace Jones was hearing voices, too many to count and too muffled to know their true purpose. They sounded vengeful, diabolical, like a living, breathing conspiracy. At first, she thought they were coming from inside the room, that she was becoming one of those paranoid types here on the island. Perhaps the voices belonged to dummies, malevolent spirits of Jamaican folklore, souls of the dead, veil piercers, somehow lurking in the land of the living, mumbling, searching for the flesh and blood of an unsuspecting warm body, somebody scared, somebody afraid, someone like Grace Jones. She shuddered at the thought.

• 4:51Jake Brennan?

  She looked around the dark room, and there were no dummies here. There was only her boyfriend, the record producer, Chris Stanley, fast asleep in bed. This was Chris's place, which also housed his recording studio, where he and Grace were putting the finishing touches on her new album, Bulletproof Heart. But Chris had been sick. The stroke put him in a brief coma, left him with brain damage, and now, sleep came often. And as Chris slept, the voices continued, a little clearer now. Grace could tell they weren't coming from inside the bedroom, they were coming from the next room over, the room where she dumped her stuff when she arrived here today, her jacket, her hat, her purse.

• 5:36Jake Brennan?

  She assumed the voices belonged to one of Chris's studio employees, who was probably here with her friends. Grace barely knew the girl, but she didn't trust her. There was tension any time the two were in the same room. The girl didn't hide the fact that she was jealous of all the time Grace spent with Chris. Grace had no evidence, but she imagined a scenario in which this employee did something that led to Chris's illness, poisoned his food perhaps. It sounded crazy, but then again, it didn't. And now, Grace wondered if a horde of kleptos were currently going through the contents of her things in the other room, with their sticky fingers desperately seeking something,

• 6:16Jake Brennan?

  just like dummies, those ghosts out for blood, seeking something that belonged to Grace Jones.

• 6:25Jake Brennan?

  Grace Jones, the enduring icon of disco club fashion. Grace Jones, the model. Grace Jones, the singer, the actress, the Bond villain. The woman with a face as recognizable as Princess Di, as Boy George, as Max Headroom, Pee-wee Herman, or any other face that came to define the 1980s.

• 6:49Jake Brennan?

  Grace Jones, however, exuded a different kind of cultural energy. With her chiseled jawline, her flat-top fade, her oversized shoulder pads, and one of the deepest and most cutting-edge closets in the game, Grace Jones looked like she had simultaneously stepped out of the past and the future. Like when she once made her entrance into New York City's famed Studio 54 for her own birthday party, dressed as the ancient Egyptian queen, Nefertiti, while riding a Harley. Her look, her style, her vibe, even the music that she made, it pushed the envelope and did so by design. Ever since she left her home country of Jamaica for the United States when she was

• 7:30Jake Brennan?

  a teenager, she had built her life and her art around wrists, because she had been denied taking those wrists growing up. If you, like Grace Jones, took those wrists as a kid in Jamaica, you were punished. You felt the sting of your grandmother's new husband's leather belt, the whack of the headmaster's cruel ruler, and the curse of your hometown's Pentecostal bishop who made sure Grace's parents knew in no uncertain terms that their daughter was the devil. The best way that Grace knew to distance herself from the trauma of her past was to take wrists. It was what separated her from those who wanted her to be so terrified that she would remain a meek, safe, boring person, just like all the rest.

• 8:19Jake Brennan?

  But Grace Jones was not like anyone else. She knew this, and so did the man sleeping in the bed next to her in this house high in the hills above Kingston. Grace watched Chris sleep while listening to the voices in the next room rise and fall, and suddenly, they stopped. The silence was deafening. And then, cutting through the bedroom window, the bright, blinding blue swirl of police lights. She heard a knock at the front door of the house, followed by more voices. This time, louder, deeper, male voices. A couple of police officers talking with Chris's employee and her friends.

• 9:00Jake Brennan?

  And then, another moment of silence, followed by another knock. This time, on the door of the bedroom Grace was in. Grace opened the door, confused, and even more out of sorts than when she was when the voices had begun minutes ago. Standing before her were two Kingston cops. It wasn't so much their presence that surprised her, it was what they were holding. Grace's purse in one hand, and in the other, a bag of cocaine. Twenty-something years earlier, in Syracuse, New York, Grace Jones was arrested for the first time. Disorderly conduct for kicking a cop's car.

• 9:43Jake Brennan?

  She and her siblings had just moved to the United States, sent for by their parents who had already emigrated years earlier. It was the late 1960s. Grace began wearing her hair in an Afro, with two pairs of false eyelashes, just like the queen supreme, Diana Ross. She painted her lips orange and her eyelids bright green so that the colors would really pop against her skin. Skin that was so dark they used to call her Firefly back home because, at night, you could only see her eyes and her teeth. She lived as a nudist for a month and dropped acid for the first time at a hippie commune. She moved to Philadelphia where she was arrested for the second, third, and fourth times.

• 10:25Jake Brennan?

  Each time, for simply walking down the street, holding her white, Italian boyfriend's hand. The cops took one look at the Caucasian with the flamboyantly dressed black woman on his arm, and assumed she was a prostitute.

• 10:39Jake Brennan?

  When it came to the Philadelphia police, they were no different from that Jamaican bishop. Grace was their devil, because she stood out, because she was unorthodox and dared to live out loud, cracking a whip onstage as a go-go dancer, an androgynous vision in black leather pants for one of her first fashion shoots alongside the Chamber Brothers in Essence magazine. And soon, she upped the ante, from Philly to New York City, where standing out was held against her. Audition after audition, it was the same thing. She was too black, her features were too angular, too strange. No matter, Grace was not discouraged. She was fueled by the rejection. She sought out modeling agencies that were looking for something different.

• 11:24Jake Brennan?

  The same ones that, like her, were seduced by risk. And she went to the places where the strange ones congregated. At Les Jardins, a discotheque located at Forty-third and Broadway, she danced to the sounds of early disco, while Lou Reed, Jackie Onassis, and Liza Minnelli blended into a sea of drag queens. A place where, standing against a back wall, John and Yoko gossiped with Andy Warhol. Andy, for one, never turned his back on the room anymore, not since he'd been shot by that crazy woman in his studio. Grace wasn't there when it happened, but in a way, she felt like she was. Because what was quickly becoming apparent was that even though she would soon become known

• 12:08Jake Brennan?

  as an exhibitionist and a provocateur, Grace Jones was in fact something else entirely. She was a magnet for true crime.

• 12:41Speaker 01

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• 13:11Speaker 02

  When intimate itch strikes, waiting it out isn't always an option. That's why there's Vagisil Maximum Strength Anti-Ich Cream. It provides fast relief from intense external feminine itching and burning. And 92% of women said Vagisil provided long-lasting itch relief. Intimate itch can have more than 60 causes. From everyday things like shaving, pads, tight clothing, to yeast-infection-related irritation, Vagisil helps protect delicate skin from further irritation. Trusted by generations, clinically and gynecologist-tested. Don't let discomfort get in the way. Visit vagisil.com to find the relief that's right for you.

• 13:43Jake Brennan?

  I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.

• 14:21Jake Brennan?

  The Jamaican jail cell was small. A concrete floor, a bench, also concrete, a small toilet, and a blanket.

• 14:30Jake Brennan?

  By day two, those initial feelings of disorientation and fear that Grace Jones had first experienced when she was handcuffed and hauled away from her producer and lover, Chris Stanley's house, were long gone. Those feelings were now replaced by panic.

• 14:48Jake Brennan?

  The cops said it was open and shut. They had been called to Chris Stanley's house on an anonymous tip. And when they arrived, they found a baggie of cocaine hid inside a $2 bill in Grace's purse. It was a small amount, just 0.007 of an ounce. But cocaine was cocaine, and cocaine was illegal, and now the illegal cocaine having Grace Jones was fucked. And on top of that, the voices were back. This time, the voices of police officers over at a desk just beyond the cell where she now sat. They spoke in tones that varied from loud and boisterous to hushed and protective. She wondered if they were talking about her. She wondered what they would say if she told them about the things going through her head.

• 15:33Jake Brennan?

  That her sick boyfriend may have been poisoned, that the cocaine had no doubt been planted, and that there was a 50/50 chance that they, sworn officers of the law, were actually in on it. But they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't even let her make a phone call, which she knew was her right. If she could only explain just how ridiculous the charges were. If you knew her, if you really knew Grace Jones, you knew that when it came to cocaine, she didn't mess with that stuff. She never put that stuff up her nose. Her nose was part of her face, part of her unorthodox beauty, her money maker, if you will. And she wasn't about to jeopardize all that just for a little cocaine, for a little high. Cocaine wasn't even Grace's thing. She was more partial to Quaaludes, Valium, Mandrakes.

• 16:18Jake Brennan?

  Her ideal high was chilling out, not freaking out. But on the occasions that she did do coke, she'd opt for a disco cigarette, aka Cocoa Puffs, joints of marijuana laced with cocaine. Or, as Grace called them, Mary Ann's, since she was introduced to them by Mary Ann Faithfull. Grace Jones's true preferred method of cocaine intake, however, was to stick a rock up her ass. Cocaine via one's butt meant no white residue lingering on your upper lip, no blood dripping from your nasal cavity, just a nice, clean, small rock. Stuff it up there and forget about it.

• 17:00Jake Brennan?

  There was no forgetting her current predicament. So she sat in the jail cell, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And the shoe did drop, but just not in the way she was expecting. It dropped like this. The cops on duty were eventually relieved by others, and these new guys were more sympathetic to her plight. Grace Jones was finally granted that one phone call, and as she picked up the receiver and dialed the number, she thought back through her life as a magnet, not only for crime, but for obstacles, barriers, and for the devil himself.

• 17:40Jake Brennan?

  1979, New York City. An apartment at the top of a commercial building in Union Square. It was the weekend which meant that the only people in the building were those occupying said apartment. Its tenant, the art director for Esquire magazine, Jean-Paul Goud, and his girlfriend, Grace Jones. Grace stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her naked body. Grace was often naked, whether it was performing at the Paradise Garage Discotheque in Lower Manhattan, wearing nothing but Keith Haring's white tribal body paint, or in a New York Magazine feature article, or at Studio 54, where anything went and where Grace was often

• 18:19Jake Brennan?

  found, and which you can hear more about in our episode on Studio 54, but I digress. Being naked at this very moment was a bit different for Grace, because she was pregnant with her first child, and her body looked different to her than it ever had before when she looked at her reflection in the fucked-up mirror. Maybe it was all that time spent at nudist retreats and hippie communes when she was younger, but being naked for Grace wasn't tantamount to being vulnerable. Being naked was being strong, and being strong was what had gotten her to this point in her life and career. When her career as a model suddenly morphed into an opportunity to make a go of it in the music business in 1977, the year of the blackout, the year of the Yankees,

• 19:02Jake Brennan?

  the year of garbage strikes, and the year of the Son of Sam, Grace Jones jumped at the chance. She loved music as much as fashion or art, but her management, her record company, they all tried to make her something that she wasn't. She would never be Aretha Franklin, no matter how hard she tried. She didn't have that voice, no one had that voice. Grace had limitations. With the guidance of her art world friends, like Andy Warhol and Richard Bernstein, as well as her fashion world friends like designer Issei Miyake, and her music world friends like Chris Blackwell, founder and owner of the record label Island Records, along with the super funky rhythm section of Sly and Robbie, Grace quickly found a way to turn those limitations into strengths.

• 19:46Jake Brennan?

  And so, after three albums in three years that clung to the soon-to-be haggard corpse of disco, Grace Jones pivoted for her fourth album, Warm Leatherette. The record combined the organic feel of Sly and Robbie's bottom end with Grace's soulful cyborg vocal delivery, a heady combination that you can hear on Grace's incredible cover of The Pretenders' private life. For a very public person, Grace Jones valued her own private life, even more so now that she was expecting. As Jean-Paul worked away in another part of the apartment, cutting up and arranging new photos of his muse, of Grace, on a desk, Grace put on clothes and stepped from the bathroom into the living room.

• 20:30Jake Brennan?

  She was thinking about her upcoming trip to the Bahamas, to Compass Point Studios, where she would put the finishing touches on the Warm Leatherette album. And that's when she saw him, a man who wasn't Jean-Paul. And this man was just beyond the living room window, standing on an outdoor terrace. He was tall, perfectly coiffed Afro, well-dressed. Grace clocked his suit as Italian, so debonair that her first instinct wasn't to panic. And then she saw the gun. The man was coming through the window now, one foot down on the living room floor, followed by another, calmly, deliberately. The pistol gripped tight and aimed straight at her.

• 21:12Jake Brennan?

  She thought about screaming for Jean-Paul and also about making a run for it. In her elevated state, she opted for the latter. Instinct and then adrenaline. She wasn't even thinking about hauling ass. She was just doing it, heart pounding, breathless. She was in the bathroom now, and she slammed the door shut behind her and twisted the lock. She heard the footsteps of that tall man getting closer, and then the door was being kicked down. She was now face to face with Mr. Armed Debener. Jean-Paul must have heard the noise because he came running, and now the man had his gun trained on both of them. The man wanted cash. Grace had none. Jean-Paul, being European and worldly, only had some Deutschmarks, two thousand of them,

• 21:56Jake Brennan?

  give or take. Give or take, the man was shaking his head now. He rotated his neck in a way that indicated either his wins or not, or this couple's lack of funds was irritating him. Most likely both. "Give him cash, American cash," he demanded. He tied them both up, one by one, and then he stood there, looking at Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goud in their faces and wondering what he was going to do with them. Grace feared the worst. She thought about being shot dead in her boyfriend's apartment, the baby still in her belly, about not being found until Monday when the building opened for business. She thought about Paula Kilnack, aka Paula, her friend and fellow model, and how just

• 22:39Jake Brennan?

  a few years back Paula took a bunch of Quaaludes and died, and how her ghost haunted the city in the pages of Cosmopolitan and Vogue. That face of hers staring directly into the lens, and how the rumors wouldn't quit that it wasn't a case of too many pills, and that Paula had actually been high on heroin and angel dust and walked right off the roof of a building. She thought about what it would be like to be a ghost, to be a rumor. She thought about being laughed at by fashion moguls who'd once doubted her, and about her first music management team, how they wanted to make her a Vegas act in a few years' time. She thought about how she'd left that cocktail lounge stuff in the dust when she sang live for the first time. No stage, just her and the crowd surrounding her like wolves,

• 23:23Jake Brennan?

  and how she didn't cower with fear, but instead crawled around, hissing like a snake, barking like a dog. If anyone felt fear that night, it was the captive audience. And now she thought about this well-dressed man with the rod in his hand, how she was one wrong move away from him pulling the trigger, and that perhaps the same fear that she felt, he felt as well. How that despite being tied up, Grace Jones could still have the upper hand. She calmly explained to the man that he could take the Deutschmarks to a nearby travel agency and convert them to cash, to American cash, and that the money was untraceable, and that he would need no ID to do so. She also said he could take her keys

• 24:07Jake Brennan?

  and use them to activate the elevator that would bring him down to the bottom floor and get away without a trace, which is exactly what the well-dressed man did. And within seconds, just like the music execs who could not see Grace's vision, and just like the butterflies in her stomach on the night of her first public performance as a singer, and just like beautiful Paula, the man was gone.

• 24:32Jake Brennan?

  The whole ordeal was absolutely terrifying, and Grace Jones wouldn't have been criticized by anyone if the experience of being held hostage in her boyfriend's apartment had led her to dial back her public persona. But Grace Jones's ambition was defined by the risks she took, and there was nothing more risky than her next move. Because Grace Jones, the model, the singer, was now about to take that next step way outside of her comfort zone. Grace Jones was going to Hollywood.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

• 25:14Speaker 01

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• 25:43Speaker 02

  When intimate itch strikes, waiting it out isn't always an option. That's why there's Vagisil Maximum Strength Anti-Ich Cream. It provides fast relief from intense external feminine itching and burning, and 92% of women said Vagisil provided long-lasting itch relief. Intimate itch can have more than 60 causes, from everyday things like shaving, pads, tight clothing, to yeast-infection-related irritation. Vagisil helps protect delicate skin from further irritation. Trusted by generations, clinically and gynecologists-tested, don't let discomfort get in the way. Visit vagisil.com to find the relief that's right for you.

• 26:15Jake Brennan?

  I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.

• 26:54Jake Brennan?

  There was only one person Grace Jones knew would be able to help her when she was being held inside a Jamaican jail cell in April of 1989. That person was not her ex-lover Jean-Paul Goud, father to her only child, and the man who'd once endured a home invasion with her. Nor was it Dolph Lundgren, the Fulbright scholar-turned-muscle-bound Rocky foe Ivan Drago, who dated Grace for a while in the mid-'80s. Hold up. Dolph Lundgren was a Fulbright scholar? The beefcake meathead who beats on Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV? That guy was supposed to go to MIT for chemical engineering, but instead left it all behind to become Grace Jones's bodyguard when they met at a club where she was performing? What?

• 27:38Jake Brennan?

  Yeah, that happened. Anyway, back to the story.

• 27:44Jake Brennan?

  Grace Jones didn't turn to boas or boyfriends or exes in her time of need. Instead, she called a professional, her press agent. And it's her belief that calling her press agent, John Carmen, not only sprung her from custody, but saved her life. She didn't tell John Carmen her whole convoluted conspiracy theory involving the cocaine that didn't belong to her, or of Chris Stanley's illness or his jealous employees, and that the local constabulary force that had no doubt been bribed in the past had something to do with what was going on here. She just gave him the irrefutable facts. She'd been held in police custody for a few days now with no sign of being let go. Her mind wandering and the darkness growing,

• 28:29Jake Brennan?

  just like mold now growing in the corner of her dank little cell. But once John Carmen sent out a press release to every major publication in the world, every newspaper, every magazine, to all those friends in places high and low, the cops felt the pressure and had no choice but to release Grace Jones. And the bail was set at $2,700. A trial now loomed, and the prosecution had their evidence. Not just the 0.007 of an ounce of cocaine, but evidence of Grace Jones's history as both a victim of criminal behavior and as a perpetrator.

• 29:11Jake Brennan?

  Grace was banging on the hotel room door so forcefully that she thought her fist would go right through it. And her other hand, she held the pistol. She couldn't even remember where she got it. Not that she intended to actually fire it. The gun was merely insurance, a tool of motivation when her words and her fist would inevitably fail. She banged on the door again and screamed his name. She knew Dolph was in there, and she knew that Dolph knew that she meant business. He understood that back when she burned all of his clothes. Even that nice Versace suit. All of it, up in flames. "Dolph, you asshole, what the hell were you doing in there? And why aren't you coming out?"

• 29:52Jake Brennan?

  She struggled to understand, while also struggling to understand who she had become at this moment. It wasn't her, and it wasn't him either. It was this city.

• 30:04Jake Brennan?

  1987, Los Angeles. If you must get into trouble, dude at the Chateau Marmont. Such was the advice that Columbia Pictures president Harry Cone once gave to actors Glenn Ford and William Holden back in the 1930s. He could have easily directed the stars to Errol Flynn's bachelor pad up on Mulholland Drive where the Robin Hood star hosted Anything Goes parties on the QT. On the down-low, very hush-hush. But by 1987, ground zero for Hollywood debauchery was not somewhere up in the hills, nor was it down on the strip at the Chateau Marmont. It was at the home of Grace Jones, who was busy making a name for herself as the Pepsi

• 30:47Jake Brennan?

  generation's Errol Flynn, with the bulging biceps of her unlikely live-in lover, the Swedish gentle giant Dolph Lundgren wrapped around her. There was one rule, and one rule only, at Grace Jones's house party. Don't die. Don't smoke too much weed in the designated weed room, and don't snort too much cocaine off the gold plate in the designated coke room. Don't pop too many pills in the Quaaludes room, and if you're going to get in on the action happening in the orgy room, then make sure you've got a safe word ready. Parties were part and parcel of the Grace Jones lifestyle. Back in New York, at Andy Warhol's factory, a good party would get you a front-row seat to the likes of Divine, John Waters's drag queen muse, smoking an angel dust-laced joint,

• 31:32Jake Brennan?

  while Woody Allen neurotically coughed nearby, or maybe another Grace, Grace Kelly, aka Princess Grace of Monaco, chewing the fat with Robert Redford and Beetle John over at Holbrooks. Grace, Grace Jones that is, even had her own baby shower at Studio 54, thrown for her by none other than Blondie's Debbie Harry. But here in LA, Grace didn't go out on the town. LA was the devil's workshop. It was all asphalt and plastic. It lacked New York's authenticity. Where were the Warhalls and the Keith Harrings and the Richard Bernstein's in Los Angeles? The place felt so manufactured that it actually frightened her.

• 32:14Jake Brennan?

  Thus, the parties came to her. Hollywood was the last place she thought she'd end up. Grace Jones was New York City in so many ways that it felt strange to be here in LA. But of course, strange is a cozy bedfellow of risk, and risk is what really turned Grace on. Besides, just two years earlier, in 1985, there was this new wave of stars in Hollywood. And it was a wave that Grace wanted to catch a ride on before it came crashing down. 1985 was the year in which Tina Turner, the R&B singer, starred in the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. It was also the year in which Madonna, the pop singer, starred in the excellent film

• 32:59Jake Brennan?

  Desperately Seeking Susan. And it was the year in which Grace Jones, a model-turned-singer, a New Yorker-turned-Los Angelino, starred opposite Roger Moore in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. Grace was suddenly no longer the intimidating-looking musician, her icy stare piercing you from the cover of her excellent 1981 album Nightclubbing. That's the one with the transformative covers of songs by Iggy Pop, Bill Withers, and The Police. Grace Jones was now the intimidating-looking Bond villain who spent her time off-screen, carousing with an equally intimidating blond-haired gym rat. Dolph Lundgren's career was rising just as fast as his girlfriend's.

• 33:44Jake Brennan?

  But while Dolph was putting in the work, early mornings at the gym and all that, to ensure that he looked like the kind of guy who could knock out Sly Stallone, Grace Jones, his girlfriend, was back home, and she was all play. The parties were going on day and night. The parties brought her closer to that New York state of mind. They made L.A. feel less frightening. The dancing, the drugs, the sex, the hedonism. It was all just as much of a coping mechanism as it was a fringe benefit of the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. Dolph Lundgren couldn't keep up with Grace Jones. Dolph needed his rest. So he started sleeping elsewhere. First, it was Sly's place, and later, it was hotels.

• 34:27Jake Brennan?

  If you grew up in the 1980s like I did, then you know that Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren's relationship was one of the weirdest of the decade, but also one of the most 80s things ever. It was Bond and Rocky, black and white, the fashion and the music, and the blockbuster films of the era, all twisted up into one indelible image. But it wasn't meant to last.

• 34:52Jake Brennan?

  Maybe Grace knew that before she showed up at Dolph's hotel room carrying a loaded pistol. Or when Dolph finally opened the door, calmly took the gun from her hand, removed the clip, and proceeded to talk his way back into her good side. And maybe she tried to put the whole thing behind her once her volatile romance with Dolph came to its natural conclusion and she at long last made her escape from L.A. When she once again pivoted, this time, from movies back to music and back to Jamaica, where she was not welcomed as a star, as an adult who made a name for herself, but as a defiant, corrupt child who needed to be punished.

• 35:57Jake Brennan?

  January, 1990.

• 36:00Jake Brennan?

  Grace Jones, perhaps wearing a gold-pleated Saint McKay hooded one-piece or a more ostentatious brown fur coat, sat stone-faced before a magistrate in the Kingston, Jamaica court. The magistrate was not yet speaking, but the voices already were, just like the voices she had heard at her boyfriend and producer Chris Stanley's house on the night she was arrested for cocaine possession. These voices came from an unseen source. They were behind her, whispering low, and they belonged to the audience, the rubberneckers sitting there in the gallery, eager to learn the fate of the prodigal daughter. The voices spoke of her transgressions, her affinity for drugs and immunity, her pact with

• 36:42Jake Brennan?

  that Gamora of the West, Hollywood, multiple affronts to God, the prophecy of a Pentecostal bishop, a devil was in their midst. All Grace Jones ever wanted to do was what came naturally, and that was to define herself by her actions and her ambitions, both of which were reactions to the way she was brought up as a child, to not just be another meek, safe, boring person. If living as a nudist or dropping LSD on a hippie commune meant that she was some sort of devil in the eyes of the old world, then so be it. She knew that her lifestyle and her public image would draw attention, but she never

• 37:24Jake Brennan?

  thought that she would attract the attention of criminality, year after year, nor did she ever think that she would be on trial for it. But here she was. When she was first arrested and released on bail in April of 1989, she wasted no time telling the press that the cocaine had been planted in her purse. She said that this would be proven in court and that the identity of the duplicitous person would be revealed.

• 37:52Jake Brennan?

  Nine months later, sitting before the magistrate, Grace reiterated her claim. She'd been set up, framed, taken advantage of by someone who was not well-known to her. This person, she claimed, was a female employee who worked at the recording studio of her boyfriend and music producer, Chris Stanley. And the woman was identified as such under a pseudonym in Grace's memoir, though in the papers at the time, the woman was referred to as Chris Stanley's ex-girlfriend. These are the same papers that also claimed that Grace and Chris were married, which Grace has since denied in her memoir, so who really knows? What we do know is that Kingston Police originally responded to Chris Stanley's house and studio

• 38:36Jake Brennan?

  on an anonymous tip. The identity of that caller remained a mystery during Grace's trial, although Grace herself would tell you otherwise. In the end, the magistrate overseeing the case chose to give Grace, in the magistrate's own words, "the benefit of the doubt." Despite her past, despite the drug-fueled industries in which she worked as a multi-hyphenate, and despite her own reputation in her home country, Grace Jones was acquitted. Her trial lasted three days, the same amount of time she'd spent in a jail cell some nine months prior. And the entire ordeal left her with about $30,000 in legal fees and travel expenses, as well as a new album to promote.

• 39:17Jake Brennan?

  That album, Bulletproof Heart, had been released by Capitol Records in October of the previous year, 1989. The cover photo of Grace, taken by her old flame and collaborator Jean-Paul Goud, now feels like a final wave goodbye to the decade that defined her, the 1980s. Grace's head, bathed in dark purple shadows, sits atop her elongated neck, her lips bright red, her ears sharp and perfectly symmetrical, her flat top like a plateau, bright yellow light emanating from where her eyes should be. She is the past and the future, bathed in mystery, maybe too mysterious. The album was a disappointment, both commercially and critically.

• 40:01Jake Brennan?

  It failed to reach the heights of many of her past records like Nightclubbing, Slave to the Rhythm, or even the Nile Rodgers-produced Inside Story. Perhaps it was the lackluster response from the public, or perhaps it was the traumatic circumstances under which the record was made. But Bulletproof Heart was the last album Grace Jones would release for another 19 years, until 2008, when she reunited with Sly and Robbie, the other Compass Point All-Stars, to make her triumphant record Hurricane.

• 40:34Jake Brennan?

  But before taking an extended hiatus from the music world, Grace Jones returned to the scene of the crime, or rather, to the scene where she'd been held for a crime she didn't commit.

• 40:47Jake Brennan?

  Grace Jones rolled up to the Kingston jail where she'd done her time, but now she had a film production crew in tow. They were there to shoot a music video for one of the tracks from her Bulletproof Heart album. Being here, making art here, in the very place that tried to silence her, took the power and control out of the hands of those who wanted to define her as something else. She knew what she was. She knew what lurked behind her eyes, the ones that had been innocent and God-fearing as a child, and were now curated with makeup and beaming with the bright yellow light of the future. Grace Jones's eyes were the future, a future with no fear, no rules, and no disgrace.

• 41:32Jake Brennan?

  I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 41:58Jake Brennan?

  Alright guys, thanks for hanging with me on another episode of DisgraceLand. Hope you dug this Grace Jones story. Listen, question of the week, 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text. I want to know your answer on, who's your favorite multi-hyphenate singer? Okay? Or, you know, which actor-turned-singer do you think did it the best? Or model? You know, whatever, whoever it is, is it Grace Jones? Is it somebody else? Get at us again, six one seven nine oh six six six three eight to leave a voicemail or send a text at DisgraceLandPod on the socials, [email protected] to send an email. To support the show, you can leave a review for DisgraceLand on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also become a Patreon All Access member.

• 42:40Jake Brennan?

  Go to disgracelandpod.com to sign up for exclusive and bonus free content. All right, I gotta get out of here. Here comes some credits.

• 42:50Jake Brennan?

  DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly Right Network and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad free. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook at DisgraceLandPod and on YouTube at youtube.com slash at DisgraceLandPod. Rockerola.

• 43:32Jake Brennan?

  He's a bad, bad man. Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyages. Back by popular demand, this five night, adults only escape sets sail March 20th, 2027 to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of DisgraceLand along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners, Wisecrack and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind the scenes

• 44:13Jake Brennan?

  storytelling, exclusive meet and greets and immersive true crime programming throughout this one of a kind voyage. Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot. I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best- Traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.

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