People will tell you she wasn’t a true supermodel. Too androgynous. Too loud. Not pretty enough. Her own boyfriend said she had a grotesque beauty. Boy bye. Yet, Grace Jones somehow made it from the pews of a holiness church in Jamaica to bearing her gorgeous body on the cover of magazines and being a muse to musicians, painters, and culture makers for decades.

“In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky — her grand old woods — her fertile fields — her beautiful rivers — her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal actions of slaveholding, robbery and wrong, — when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing.” - Frederick Douglas