Imanuelle Grives (37) was world news when she was arrested at the Belgian festival Tomorrowland with her pockets full of drugs. The Dutch actress disappeared behind bars for a few months and got back on her feet. She will go to jail once more on Tuesday evening, but now for the Flemish documentary series Straight to jail. “I consider the fact that I was arrested then as a divine intervention.”
It was a bit of a swallow for Imanuelle Grives when she stood before the prison doors once more. In the documentary series Straight to jail she does it to give senior officials an insight into what it is like to live within four walls, but she never gets used to it. “Why am I doing this once more, I wondered”, laughs Grives in an interview with The last news. ,,Again through all those gates that keep closing behind you… It’s so suffocating. But I found the approach of the documentary very interesting, because senior officials and ex-detainees can learn a lot from each other.”
It is now almost four years ago that Grives was under lock and key. In the summer of 2019, the acclaimed actress was arrested by the police when she wanted to enter Tomorrowland with various types of drugs. Drugs were also found in the Airbnb apartment she rented. At first, the Surinamese-Dutch still claimed that it was to prepare for a role in a drug film, but the judge did not agree. Grives was sentenced to two years in prison, one year of which was suspended. She ended up being locked up for two months.
“It may sound strange, but followingwards I am very happy that it happened to me”, the Rotterdam woman looks back. “I was in a very destructive phase in my life. Nothing interested me anymore, I didn’t want to think regarding anything anymore. I already took mind-altering drugs for breakfast that day and just before that I had already gotten behind the wheel with way too much alcohol. The chance that things would go wrong that Sunday was very high, yet I was randomly picked by the police that day. It felt like divine intervention. The whole thing that followed gave me the chance to reflect on my life and, however terrible the way it was, to start over.”
Stamp
Grive’s arrest was world news. Her photo appeared in the UK and the US. And that had consequences. She was deleted from the film in question, was written out of the extremely popular youth series Spangas and also lost her role as ambassador for a number of youth and health organizations. “Consequences that are 100% understandable”, Grives nods four years later. “Those people had faith in me and then I can’t embarrass them with my mental state. But in the meantime I have found a way to turn that experience into something positive.”
Grives wrote a book, My fighter heart, including regarding what she went through and how she recovered from it. She’s also back in television and theater acting, lecturing on how to turn your biggest setbacks into your best assets. “The stamp of ex-detainee is inseparable from me, but I prefer to use it to do something useful. Psychological help helped me a lot and ensured that I can say that being admitted to a prison will never happen once more. Unless it’s for a TV show,” she laughs.
Dad’s acknowledgment
Through that psychological help, Grives also found out the true reason for her destructive behavior. She didn’t feel completely understood in the entertainment world and ran into a burnout because she was so busy. “The responsibility for what happened lies entirely with me, but at that moment it was my way of drawing attention,” Grives looks back. ,,I didn’t feel recognized by my father, what I did was never good enough. He wanted me to have a decent Christian life, with a decent man. Not an emancipated woman acting and appearing on television. Subconsciously I had expected that I would be recognized with my negative behavior. Of course it doesn’t work that way.”
Imanuelle broke off contact with her father for a while, but they came to terms with each other before his death in 2021. “We talked everything out before his death,” says the actress. “I forgive you and I hope you can forgive me too,” I said on his deathbed. I wanted him to go to the followinglife in love, and he did. I am still grateful that we were able to close everything nicely.”
Sexual tension
Grives looks back on the whole event as the moment when her second life began. She needed her time in prison to come to herself. She will not easily forget those two months in Antwerp’s Begijnenstraat.
“You know what was the craziest thing regarding living in a prison?” she asks. “The dynamics that arise because men and women are separated. You live strictly segregated, but there are times when you sometimes encounter male detainees, for example in the hallway. That tension that hangs there… It’s quite sexual, yes. You are stripped of everything: extensions, makeup, jewelry… But there have been times when I felt more beautiful and more myself than ever. Very intense.”
Straight to prison, at 9 p.m. on the Flemish channel Play4.
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