Jane Fonda made a career out of looking gorgeous on screen and whipping us into shape with her aerobic videos, but she didn’t always feel great about her body.
Fonda, star of such films as Coming Home, Klute, On Golden Pond and Barbarella, recently revealed that she was emotionally abused as a child and it directly affected how she felt about her body.
“I wish Girls had been out there when I was a young girl. That would have changed everything,” she said during a conversation with actress Lena Dunham for Paper magazine.
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“I grew up with massive body image [issues] — my father made me feel that I was fat and unattractive and I don’t think he realized how destructive it was,” she explained.
In the past, Fonda has openly discussed the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband, political activist Tom Hayden, who she says in her 2011 autobiography belittled her and her success.
“No one person deserves that much attention,” he said in an interview with Barbara Walters. He also insisted they be referred to as “Tom and Jane” in the press, not “Jane and Tom,” to avoid appearing inferior to her.
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“I simply didn’t think my ideas or feelings were as important or credible as his,” she said.
But Fonda seems to have moved on admirably. She currently stars in Grace and Frankie with Lily Tomlin — just confirmed for a third season — and enjoys what by all appearances is a happy and emotionally healthy relationship with boyfriend Richard Perry.
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