Jane Fonda Explains How Her Dad Henry Fonda Caused Her Bulimia

Jane Fonda has long been known for her physically fit lifestyle, but as a young teen, she began a struggle with bulimia that would last for decades. And now, more than 65 years later, Jane reveals that it was her father, Henry Fonda, who caused her to become bulimic. In an essay for Lenny, Jane Fonda wrote that her father would send his wife (Jane’s stepmother) to tell her she had to lose weight.

“When I hit adolescence and the specter of womanhood loomed, all that mattered was how I looked and fit in,” Jane wrote. “My father would send my stepmother to tell me to lose weight and wear longer skirts. One of my stepmothers told me all the ways I’d have to change physically if I wanted a boyfriend.”

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Jane’s biological mother, Frances Ford Seymour, committed suicide in 1950, just days after Henry asked her for a divorce. Jane was just 12 years old at the time. Henry went on to marry three more times, and more than half of his five wives had eating disorders.

“Like three of my father’s five wives, I developed an eating disorder (probably to fill the emptiness).”

This is not the first time Jane Fonda has talked about her bulimia. In a previous interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Jane revealed that her father put a heavy focus on weight and looking good, and that stayed with her throughout her life.

“I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly,” Jane said. “He was a good man, and I was mad for him, but he sent messages to me that fathers should not send: Unless you look perfect, you’re not going to be loved.”

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Fonda went on to say that she was unhappy from puberty up until she turned 50. Some of the worst of it came when she was in her career heyday and was already a mother to her kids Vanessa and Troy. At the height of her bulimia, Jane would purge up to 20 times a day.

“I wasn’t very happy from, I would say, puberty to 50?” Jane revealed. “It took me a long time. It was in my 40s, and if you suffer from bulimia, the older you get, the worse it gets. It takes longer to recover from a bout. I had a career, I was winning awards, I was supporting nonprofits, I had a family.”

A staunch feminist, Jane Fonda took on Vietnam and she was vocal about supporting females in politics and in movie roles—all while secretly battling bulimia. She now admits the public didn’t see the real Jane.

Jane Fonda fought in Korea, Vietnam, and on covert operations in Cambodia before resigning her commission in 1977. pic.twitter.com/Nzmj1fl8Dp

— Pictures in History (@PicNMixHistory) February 4, 2016

“What the public saw was something else,” Jane wrote. “They saw a feminist. And I was one, in that I supported women candidates, brought gender issues into my movie roles, produced women-centered films, and made exercise videos to help women get strong physically. But my feminism was theoretical, in my head, not my blood and bones.”

After battling her demons for decades, Fonda finally had enough. She quit bulimia cold turkey and switched her focus to exercise.

“I had to make a choice: I live or I die.”

Jane Fonda became a ’80s workout video guru, selling more than 17 million fitness videos and books in her exercise empire. She can no longer do lunges due to hip and knee replacements, but at age 79 Jane Fonda is still going strong, although she admits she is still vain when it comes to her own body image.

“I’m vain,” she told Harper’s in 2011. “My arms are thin, but I’m vain about loose flesh. And so I’m careful that what I wear will show off my best parts, which are my waist and my butt.”

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While she faced her eating disorder head on more than 30 years ago, in her Lenny essay, Jane revealed that it wasn’t until she turned 60 years old that she confronted all of her issues that stemmed from her emotionally abusive father Henry, who died in 1992.

“When I turned 60 and entered my third and final act, I decided that no matter how scary it was, I needed to heal the wounds that patriarchy had dealt me,” Jane wrote. “I didn’t want to come to the end of my life without doing all I could to become a whole, full-voiced woman.”

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Take a look at the video below to see Jane Fonda talking about how she stopped her bulimia cold turkey.

[Photo By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]