Bond diva Grace Jones takes aim at Lady Gaga

Grace Jones: 'God I'm scary. I'm scaring myself'. Pop's formidable diva talks sex, slaps and annoying copycats (that's you, Lady Gaga) to The Guardian.

Three bottles of red wine, a platter of sushi and four dozen oysters are lined up waiting for her, but still there is no sign of Grace Jones. We've been warned. Jones keeps Jamaica time. She doesn't appear in daylight. This is Graceland, and in Graceland only one person dictates the terms. Six pm turns into 7pm. We're in a freezing, underground car park turned exhibition space. Seven pm turns into 8pm, and now the stories are coming thick and fast. There was the time Jones kept David Bailey waiting a whole day, or was it two? Eventually, she calls and her manager Brendan screams down the phone at her: "GET HERE NOW, YOU BITCH!" Eight pm turns into 9pm.

She once appeared during the day for Breakfast TV, her make-up artist Terry says. "She said, 'Darling, you're ruining my reputation, you know I'm a vampire.' " How did she look by day? "Quite surreal. Like she doesn't really belong. She definitely belongs to the night."

As a supermodel, pop star, Bond girl, artistic muse and artwork in herself, Jones is a one-off. Photographers and artists love working with her. Andy Warhol's Grace Jones – all red lipstick, fierce flat-top and pink backdrop – is one of his last great portraits. Helmut Newton wrapped her in the arms of Dolf Lundgren to recreate Adam and Eve as a modern-day designer muscle couple. Keith Haring body-painted her into a parody Masai warrior. Perhaps most famously of all, Jean-Paul Goude shot her as a rippling racehorse – virtually naked, standing on one leg, bronzed and oiled, microphone in one hand, right leg raised at 90 degrees to meet her right arm – it is an astonishing image, albeit famously faked.

Now she is working with Chris Levine, another artist straddling sculpture and photography. In the corner of the room is a huge multicoloured image of Jones with her eyes shut. Stand at different distances and angles, and the image changes. This 3D photograph, made up of 30 images of Jones hit by lasers, has the wizardry of a hologram and the humanity of a classic portrait – Madame Tussauds meets Irving Penn.

Nine pm turns into 10pm. Shoots with Jones are always like this. And yet there is something about her. People are prepared to wait. Two years ago she made her first studio album in 19 years. One of the team talks about all the people she's turned down as collaborators – including Lady Gaga. Not up to it, thinks Jones (of which more later).

At 10.03pm the doors burst open. A huge trunk is carried in. Then another. And another. Jones has brought her entire wardrobe – and then some. It turns out she stopped at her favourite Issey Miyake store on the way – they opened up specially so she could raid. "Finally!" she says, looking round the room as if we're the ones who have kept her waiting all these hours.

Jones is 61 now, but could pass for someone in her 30s. Her skin is extraordinary. Soft, shiny and muscly. She's wearing a ridiculous outfit – huge ski boots, tight jesterish jumpsuit, clashing socks, sable fur hoodie – and looks magnificent. Her bad manners should make me want to slap her, but I feel surprisingly well disposed towards her. Anyway, in Graceland it's Jones who gets to do the slapping, as I'm about to find out. Despite all her achievements, she's still best known in the UK for hitting TV chatshow host Russell Harty when he turned his back on her.

It's getting on for midnight, she's on the red wine and is starting to come to life. I'm looking at her clothes admiringly, and she's encouraging me to try them on. "We're all a bit woo," she says. "I love cross-dressers."

Terry is painting her face, and she's talking 13 to the dozen. Conversation with Jones is a pinball game – ping, ping, ping, then it's gone. So we ping from beatings to drug busts and Brittany oysters within seconds and back again.

She's looking at herself in the mirror. Her face is as fearsome as it is beautiful, especially fully made up. Did she consciously created an image to go with the face? "No. I think the scary character comes from male authority within my religious family. They had that first, and subliminally I took that on. I was shit scared of them."

Jones grew up in Jamaica among a family of leaders – on one side there were pentecostal ministers, on the other politicians. In her early years she was brought up by grandparents because her parents had moved to the US. Her step-grandad, she says, was ferocious. He used to beat her at the least opportunity. "Sometimes we'd have to climb a tree and pick our own whips to be disciplined with. When you had to pick your own whip, you knew you were in for it." Could she pick a tiny one? "No, you had to pick a proper whip, take the leaves off and fftttt ffffttt." The wind whistles through her teeth. How old was she? "I guess I was six years old. I thought everybody had the same."

At 12, she went to live with her parents in the US. She showed a talent for languages and hoped to be a Spanish teacher, but discovered she preferred theatre and rebellion to school and God. Could she ever have been a serious woman of the church? "No, never. I made a special effort not to be." And how. She took drugs, took her clothes off, got into all sorts of trouble. Were her parents embarrassed? "Of course." Ashamed? "Totally." At what? "What d'you mean at what?" She raises her voice, affronted. "I get on stage, show my tits. I do crazy things. I get arrested." For what? "This girl set me up with cocaine. It was such a tiny amount that the judge laughed it out of court. Not even a cockroach could get high on that, the judge said." How old was she then? "I don't know. I don't count! I don't count! I just know it happened when I was recording in Jamaica, and the girl that was running the studio was in love with my boyfriend and she wanted me out of the way."

Who was he? "He was a Jamaican guy. My Jamaican Guy is not named after him." Who was it named after? "A guy called Tyrone who was with the Wailers. But I couldn't have him because he was with somebody else. He was a beautiful guy. He doesn't even know I wrote it about him." She laughs. "Well, he'll know now."

In New York, she hung out with Warhol and the Factory crowd. "I'd go every day, have lunch, just chat. Andy wanted to know everything that was going on. We were just this group of people who loved the arts and the art world. I was modelling and had started singing."

In the early 70s, it was the boys (Bowie, Bolan, Iggy) who glamorised androgyny. But by the late 70s Jones was outdoing them. She exuded both grace and menace, femininity and masculinity, and of course sexuality. Helmut Newton adored her – from a distance. "When I was modelling, he would call me all the time to work and then, when I got there, he would say, 'Oh my God, I forgot you don't have big tits', and send me back. Then we ended up working together quite a lot, and my tits didn't matter any more because he loved my legs. Hehehehe!"

Jones had always hated her thin legs. At school, she was mocked for them. Look how skinny my ankles are, she says today – I can circle them with my thumb and forefinger. Her arms, she says, are a totally different proposition.

"Can I feel your muscles?"

"Sure," she says.

I'm shocked – she really is ripped.

"Ehehehehe! Chchchch! Ahahahaha." She has got a great laugh – like a manic rooster. And still she's going. "Chchchhahahaha." Just as I'm beginning to worry she's suffocating, she calms down. "When I started modelling, I'd raise my arms and it was all muscle and all the other models had nothing. Really, everybody thought I was a man. I don't have to do much to have muscles. It's just genetic."

Jones has always been a woman of extremes: the body, the laughter, the four dozen oysters a day, the drugs. "I once took acid for three days. It was called the super-trip pill, STP, yeah they don't do that any more." Were there bad effects? "No, but I was under doctors' care. It was done for experiment, not for partying. Mind-opening. That was the way to take it. If you take it just for partying, that's when it goes pear-shaped."

Throughout, she was determined to be open with her parents about what she was and what she had become. "I did not make an effort to make everything pretty for them. I showed them the worst, and I thought if they could accept the worst… I don't like people who hide things. We're not perfect, we all have things that people might not like to see, and I like to show my faults."

Gradually, her parents did learn to accept the worst. "My dad had become a bishop, and I found out he was carrying pictures of me in his wallet, showing off quietly. And when I first did Merv Griffin..."

Who's Merv Griffin? She looks aghast. "You don't know who Merv Griffin was? He was a very big talkshow host in America. That is really bad." I hold out my hand for a reproving slap. But that won't do. "That is not a slap on the hand. That's a bend over. Wahahahahahahah!" So I do as I'm told. Thwack. Thwack . Thwack. Thwack. "Now go on the internet and look under Griffin – he was as big as Johnny Carson. You're lucky I've not got my whip! My hands were cold, so that heats them up a bit. Good for circulation. And the red wine."

Did her mother and father ever tell her they were proud? "Yes. It took a while. The thing is, as leaders in the church, they were pressured by everyone else to shun me. You know what shun means?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"Ach, I can't get you on that one," she says disappointed.

In the early 80s, she had hits with songs that fused disco, funk, soul, reggae and downright dirtiness – Pull Up to The Bumper must be the most suggestive song of all time. It was in 1981 that she hit Harty on television. Was there any aspect of theatre to it? "No, I wasn't acting. Absolutely not. Did I look as if I was acting?" It's a rhetorical question. Did Harty ever apologise? "No, he just wanted me back on his show for the ratings." But she told him he was rude and had no intention of returning. Was the incident good for her career? She shakes her head. "No, it helped the notorious part, but it didn't help my career. Everybody went away from me. Everybody. The record company, everybody. 'We don't know her, forget her, she's ruined it for all our other artists, she's never going to get on another show.' It was a big stink until the press came out positive on my behalf. And I saw them change on a dime."

She did not make a new record for so long because there was nothing she wanted to do. Actually, she says, she did complete an album, but she couldn't stand it, so she just buried it without a release. Any number of artists have asked to collaborate with her. Was Lady Gaga one of them?

"I just don't play with other acts as a rule," she says, with rare discretion.

What does she think of her? "I really don't think of her at all. I go about my business."

Has she copied her? "Well, you know, I've seen some things she's worn that I've worn, and that does kind of piss me off."

Is she talented? "I wouldn't go to see her."

So, did she ask to play with her? "Yes, she did, but I said no. I'd just prefer to work with someone who is more original and someone who is not copying me, actually."

Of what is she most proud? "My son," she says instantly. Paolo is a member of her band, and the product of her relationship with Goude.

Earlier in the day, Chris Levine had told me he was surprised by Jones's sensitivity, because he expected to meet a 10ft man-eater. Is she as voracious as the image would have us believe? "What d'you mean?" she demands. "Do I love sex? I love sex. Absolutely. It's very relaxing. Very good for stress."

Has she had relationships only with men? "I love women, but I've never had a relationship with a woman. Having a threesome is fun, but never a relationship. I like to experiment, and as an actress I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things."

She drinks her wine through a straw so as not to mess up her lips. Does she think she has changed over the years? "Of course I've changed. I'm not as impatient as I used to be. I used to hit people if I didn't like what they were saying. Just lash out. Bam – shut up! Hahahah! I was terrible."

But physically she's remarkably unchanged. She has not had plastic surgery, and never will. "Absolutely not. I would not cut myself." Her hair is greying a little at the sides, but that's the only giveaway. Will she ever look like an old woman? "No. No. My mom is 80 and doesn't have a line."

In the old days, the rumour was that Jones lived on cocaine and oysters. These days, her friends say, she sticks to red wine, sushi and oysters, and that's the secret of her endless youth. She laughs when I mention it, and says I've got it all wrong. "You don't do oysters and red wine together. That's a no-no, you just don't do that. I love a nice white wine with oysters. If you notice, I'm not eating oysters yet. I have oysters for energy, oysters also take you out of depression. It's an aphrodisiac, sweetheart. Didn't you know that? You have four dozen, sweetie, and you will be running around looking for anything hot! Bring 'em on! Woooooooo-ooooh! You'll be howling at the moon."

Her face is almost complete. She looks in the mirror and compliments the make-up artist. "God, I'm scary. I'm scaring myself. It's great! That's beautiful."

Two am, and she's in the swing of things now. The lights are turned low, the wine is flowing, Michael Jackson is blasting out of the speakers, and Jones is grooving, pouting, singing and flaunting, as the photographer clicks away. She changes from one outfit to another, and shows no sign of slowing up.

At 3am, I call it a day. I suppose it's a stamina thing – some people have it, some don't. She looks genuinely sorry that I'm leaving her party early. But by the time I'm at the door, she's dancing, preening and posing again, and I'm a distant memory. She really is a force of nature. A phenomenon. The pensionable vampire is in her element, and she's not even on to the oysters yet.

• Stillness At The Speed Of Light, an exhibition of Chris Levine's 3D holographic portraits of Grace Jones, is at the Vinyl Factory, London W1, from 29 April-May 13. Grace Jones plays the Royal Albert Hall, London SW7, on 26 April.

Thanks to `Maddy` for the alert.

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