Jane Fonda had a difficult childhood that shot down her self-worth and the relationship with her first husband just made it worse.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on November 16, 2020. It has since been updated.
Jane Fonda, 85, has lived a full life and she is not afraid of talking about it. Over the years, the actress, who was once the most hated person in the US, has opened up about her relationships and the colorful life she has lived.
Born to Henry Fonda and Francis Seymour, the 82-year-old lost her mother when she was only 12 years old. Francis was Henry's second wife and he went on to marry three more times. "Before my mother’s death I was feisty, I was ambitious, I was brave," Jane was quoted as saying by Daily Mail. "Suddenly I was nothing to myself. You could have put what was left of me into a thimble," she added.
Her broken self-worth was further harmed by her relationship with her film star father. He was unable to show any emotions or even praise her or give her support. "I never had a real, long conversation with my dad in my entire life," she said.
Her relationship with her first husband, director Roger Vadim, was toxic but he gave her emotional stability. "What I found as irresistible about him as the sex was his attachment to his little daughter. (I thought) he must be a good man to love his daughter that way," she said. They were so happy in their initial months, Jane thought her "heart would burst."
10 years her senior, Vadim eventually showed his true colors. In her autobiography My Life So Far, the Barbarella actress said that her husband, who was previously married to Brigitte Bardot, encouraged her to have threesomes when she found out he was cheating on her. He also encouraged her to find other women to join them in bed. The French director suggested she talk to those women and bring them home.
The actress, who was insecure, agreed to go along with it but it made her feel "less than perfect." "For me with Roger Vadim, that meant bringing other women into our bed," she writes in the book, as per Evening Standard. "It seems shocking that I did that, but I managed to convince myself that it was fine, that I wanted to, even though it was killing my heart."
"I had never even thought about a threesome but I treated it as if it was the most normal thing on earth. So threesomes became foursomes – always girls. I convinced myself that I enjoyed it. We reached a point when I would go and do the soliciting. Always discreetly, of course, through a high-class agency. Yet I was supposed to be clever and my own woman. I was anything but," she said, according to Express UK.
She felt a sense of foreboding even on the day of their wedding in 1965. She said she was "feeling like a zombie and wondering: 'I don’t know why I’m doing this.'" Eventually, she got enmeshed in Vadim's life, which included being in debt due to gambling. Not only was she paying his creditors but also indulging in his sexual fantasies. Even decades later in 2016, the actress is shocked at the things she did for him. "Even now, I can’t believe I took the risks. The personal feeling of having no self-worth was bad enough," she said. At least, she now realizes what was making her act that way.
"He validated me. I couldn’t conceive of leaving him," she said, as reported by Daily Mail. So, when he brought home a sex worker from a brothel in Paris, she took her "cues" from him and "threw" herself into the "threesome with the skill and enthusiasm of the actress" that she is.
However, their toxic relationship left her emaciated literally. "I ceased eating except for crusts from his bread and rinds from his camembert," she said, according to Evening Standard. She now knows that Vadim's behavior was comforting because it was familiar. Her French husband echoed her father's behavior. They divorced in 1973.
In her senior years now, she is glad that she is no longer an object of desire. "Men don’t look at me anymore. I’ve been looked at a lot in my life, so now I can be anonymous. It is something of a relief," she said, reported Express UK.
References:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2033161/Jane-Fonda-How-fear-turned-sex-addict.html
https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/jane-fondas-threesome-heartache-7272398.html
https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/637259/Jane-Fonda-glad-men-don-t-look-at-me-any-more-Youth
