Aurora Starchild
Jane Fonda has had quite the love life. At 85, she’s no longer interested in romantic relationships, but it’s not because she hasn’t tried. She’s been married and divorced three times and has three children. Meet the actress, model, and activist’s former husbands.
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Jane Fonda’s Early Life
Jane Fonda was born on December 21, 1937. The 7-time Golden Globe winner, 2-time Academy Award winner, and Emmy Award-winner began her acting career on the stage in 1959. Born to socialite Frances Ford Seymour and actor Henry Fonda, she first became interested in the arts after seeing her father perform at the Omaha Community Playhouse in 1954. Tragically, her mother had committed suicide four years earlier. Her father remarried and divorced, which some say could have had a later impact on Jane’s love life.
Fonda enrolled at Vassar College but dropped out to pursue other ambitions. She traveled to Paris to study art before returning to New York. In New York, Fonda started modeling, appearing on Vogue’s cover twice before her acting debut. She began studying under Lee Strasberg in 1958, whose influence she later said sparked “a turning point” in her life.
Jane Fonda Quickly Became a Hollywood Star and Sex Symbol
Once switching to film, Fonda had no trouble finding consistent work. She appeared in Tall Story in 1960 and was steadily cast at least twice a year from that point on. Her breakthrough role is widely considered to be the comedy western Cat Ballou in 1965, which garnered five Oscar nominations. She co-starred alongside Robert Redford in The Chase the following year. In 1966, she filmed The Game Is Over, and paparazzi photos from the shoot made it into Playboy that same year without her consent. She starred in the 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella, which would forever put her scantily clad image on posters around the world. Fonda is still active to this day, most recently appearing in 80 for Brady and the TV series Stoner Cats.
She’s an Activist and Feminist
Jane Fonda has been a sex symbol for over 50 years, but she’s also been a prominent activist. She opposed the Vietnam War in the 70s, which many believe put her on a surveillance list under the Nixon administration. Since then, she’s maintained an anti-conflict stance, opposing the war in Iraq and the violence between Israel and Palestine. Fonda has also been an advocate for feminist and pro-LGBTQ causes, for Indigenous people and for the environment.
Fonda Has Dated Many Men and Some of Them Were Secretly Gay
Fonda’s autobiography claims that she lost her virginity to the actor James Franciscus when she was 18. She’s been romantically linked to a long line of men, some of whom were secretly homosexual. Fonda has admitted that she was the “go-to” woman for gay men to pretend to date when homophobia was more rampant throughout society.
Jane Fonda Has a Daughter With Her First Husband Roger Vadim
Jane Fonda began dating the French film director Roger Vadim in December 1963. They married less than two years later on August 14, 1965, in Las Vegas. On September 28, 1968, they welcomed daughter Vanessa. Shortly after Vanessa’s birth, Fonda and Vadim separated. Although the exact dates aren’t known, by January 1973 they were officially divorced. Three days after the divorce was finalized, Fonda remarried. However, Fonda and Vadim remained on good terms over the years.
Fonda Has a Son and Adopted Daughter With Second Husband Tom Hayden
Jane Fonda’s second husband was activist Tom Hayden. They married on January 19, 1973, when Fonda was three months pregnant. They welcomed son Troy O’Donovan on July 7, 1973. Nine years later, the couple unofficially adopted a teenage girl from Africa, named Mary Luana “Lulu” Williams. Fonda had previously aligned herself with the Black Panther movement prior to her relationship to Hayden, and Lulu’s parents were allegedly members of the group. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Jane and Tom, who eventually separated and finalized their divorce on June 10, 1990.
Fonda Thought Her Third and Final Husband Ted Turner Would Be Forever
On December 21, 1991, Jane Fonda married CNN founder Ted Turner. “I thought it’d be forever,” she later told Entertainment Tonight (via People). “He was sexy… brilliant. He had two million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay,” she revealed in the HBO documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts. “But there was this angel on my shoulder…it was hard to even hear her voice, saying, “If you stay, you will die without ever becoming who you can be. You will not really be authentic.”
They divorced on May 22, 2001. She said that their marriage was “irretrievably broken” and that “there is no hope of reconciliation.” Fonda added that she felt “sadness” but likened Turner’s neediness to her “babysitting.” “We went in different directions,” she said. “I grew up.”
Fonda would later explain to Harper’s BAZAAR that her marriage to Ted Turner was like “marrying 15 people.”
She’s Given Up Dating in Her 80s
“Part of the reason I get into a relationship with a man is because I feel that he can take me down a new path,” she told BAZAAR. “I’m attracted to people who can teach me things and whose lives are different from mine, and so I give myself over to that. First of all, I want to please him. That’s a problem.” She added that she was attracted to men who didn’t “show up” but that, despite her perceptions on maturing, she later realized she herself was also “not really capable. It’s not them. It’s me.”
Jane Fonda Prefers Solo Sex and Female Friendships These Days
For whatever reasons, good or bad, Jane Fonda doesn’t seem to mind being single. She dated music producer Richard Perry from 2007 to 2017. After their split, she told Sirius XM Radio Show that “My current and next love are my girlfriends. I’ve had a good run. I’ve closed up shop.”
She reiterated the sentiment to Extra TV, citing her age and saying she was “not dating anymore.”
“I had several serious relationships after [Ted], but I can’t…” Fonda told British Vogue. “That is my failing. I realize I can never overcome it. That when I’m with a man, I give up myself.”
Despite not dating, Fonda has certainly learned more about herself over the years. She told Andy Cohen that she enjoys her “solo” sex life these days and that women tend to know what they want as they get older.
What exactly she wants is private, but we do know this: Jane Fonda gave Drew Barrymore a vibrator on TV last week, and said she had an entire dresser drawer full of adult toys. “You would freak out if you saw what’s in there,” Fonda told Barrymore.
