The Problem Jane Fonda's Failed Marriages Had In Common

As longtime fans may know, Jane Fonda has been married three times. According to Us Weekly, the actor's first marriage was to French film director Roger Vadim, which lasted from 1965 to 1973. Fonda spoke about the split from Vadim in her 2005 autobiography, "My Life So Far," as she admitted that his gambling and drinking became an issue. Not long after her split from Vadim, Fonda married activist Tom Hayden. Your Tango reports that the pair got married in 1973 and was Fonda's longest-lasting marriage of 17 years. The couple pulled the plug in 1990 after Hayden moved on from Fonda in favor of another woman. "I didn't know that pain could be so bad," Fonda reportedly said of the tough split from Hayden. 

Fonda and Ted Turner tied the knot one year after she and Hayden split. They were married for a decade before Fonda chose to leave. She spoke with People about her third and final marriage this year and why she never thought she would act again. "I left for 15 years, when I married Ted Turner, and I did not think I was gonna come back, 'cause when I married him, I thought it'd be forever," she told the outlet.

Fonda also spoke about the marriage with People in 2018. "He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had two million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay," she explained before saying she was glad she had left.

Jane Fonda is spilling what went wrong with her three marriages. The "80 for Brady" star appeared on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast in late January, revealing that many of the issues with her marriages stemmed from her upbringing. Fonda called out her father for "objectification and judgementalism" and for "unconsciously making me feel that I'm not lovable." Fonda said that the issue with her dad took a while to get over, and it played a role in the marriages ending.

"I was determined that I was going to marry somebody that was the opposite of my father. I married three times. On the surface, they all looked the opposite of my father, but where it mattered, the ability to become intimate, what does that mean?" the actor said before explaining that intimate to her means "authentic." She continued, "I think that I chose men who weren't that way and were going to demand that of me, and I think that's because of my father and my relationship with him." Fonda also pointed out that she "didn't have the guts" to end the marriages when she should have.

The star has been open about her love life, and in 2021, she told Page Six that she has no desire to wed again. "I can watch whatever I want on TV," she confessed at the time. "So I don't ever want to be married again. But it's something I wish I'd been better at."

While Jane Fonda is incredibly open about her past marriages and why they didn't work, she's also pretty open about her love life. The star has talked about the potential for any relationship in the future — even if it doesn't involve a walk down the aisle. "I don't want to be in a relationship, a sexual relationship, again," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2021. "I don't have that desire. Do I fantasize? Yes ... That I meet a professor or a researcher, somebody in that line who is really capable of loving, of cherishing a woman, so that I could test myself and see if I could show up." Guess what? Fonda didn't stop there, either. She continued, stating that she has a certain person in mind if she were to be in a relationship. "I would want a younger man, and I'm too vain," she told the outlet. 

Keeping with the same theme, Fonda also spoke about her sex life on "Andy Cohen Live" on Sirius XM. During Fonda's appearance on the radio show, Cohen asked her if she thinks people have better sex as they get older, and Fonda gave a candid, Fonda-esque reply. "Women, I think, tend to get better because they lose their fear of saying what they need," she told Cohen, stating that women don't usually don't express their needs when they're younger. "But when we get older, it's like: 'No, I know what I want. Give me what I want,'" she stated.