Jane Fonda says being “white and famous” helped her get arrested and in prison
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Jane Fonda speaks out about the different treatment she received during one of her 2019 arrests because she is “white and famous.”
The Oscar winner chatted with her “Cheers” co-stars and longtime friends Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson on her new podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” about her December 2019 arrest and detention in Washington, DC during a climate march.
“We are white and we are famous and we will never truly know what it is like to be black or brown in this country,” she said of her arrest and imprisonment.
When Danson added that “most people in this world, especially people of color, get arrested in a very different way,” the human rights activist had a trademark response ready.
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“Still, there is something very liberating about civil disobedience. It’s like putting your whole body, your deepest values, on the line, and you don’t get the chance to do that very often in life,” said Fonda, now 86.
She continued, “Even though we’re treated OK there because they don’t want to make a fuss because we’re white and famous, it’s still, like you said, important and I thought to myself, because I was 82 and the fifth time I got arrested, they put me in jail.”
When Danson asked her about her time in Washington DC prison, Fonda again explained what her fame had changed about her time there.
“Well, I’m white and famous, and there was actually a woman, a guard outside my cell, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s interesting. I’m in prison.’ … Why is there a guard out there?'” Fonda told the co-hosts, adding, “It was perfectly clear why I was being guarded.”
In 2019, the activist was arrested several times for protesting against climate change, including in October of that year along with “The Good Place” alumnus Danson. She had previously spoken about the Fire Drill Fridays protests and her arrests in her book “What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action.”
In 2019, Fonda, along with environmental group Greenpeace and other environmental activist allies, launched the “Fire Drill Fridays” initiative to protest every Friday on the streets of the country’s capital.
These protests culminated in acts of non-violent civil disobedience. Many people, including celebrities, were arrested to raise awareness of the climate crisis.
Fonda also said she believes some of her fellow inmates should be placed in mental health facilities rather than prison, echoing a common view among defense lawyers.
“You get psychotic breakdowns, guys screaming and shouting and banging on doors, and you realise they should be somewhere else, like a psychiatric hospital. They shouldn’t be in prison,” she said.
Jane Fonda says she was the “only white person” in prison and her fellow inmates didn’t care who she was
The “Book Club” actress added that she was “the only white person there and then in the morning she was taken somewhere else, along with a lot of other prisoners, black women,” calling the experience “really interesting.”
And the former “Grace & Frankie” actress’s fellow inmates were not impressed by her extensive track record, which includes two Oscars – with the exception of a 2005 film starring another Hollywood heavyweight.
Jane Fonda escapes fifth arrest at climate protest in DC
“They didn’t care who I was. They had much more important things to do, and none of them had seen any of my films. … They had seen ‘Monster-in-Law,'” Fonda told Danson and Harrelson. “I pulled that card and they were slightly impressed, but not really.”
Contributors: Rasha Ali, Andrea Mandell
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