Jane Fonda has had no shortage of love in her life, marrying three times. But after her eight-year relationship with Richard Perry ended last year, she has decided that she’s done with dating. And she expressed that in a way only the 80-year-old controversial icon can.
At the premiere of her new film Book Club — which sees her and fellow powerhouses Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen playing single seniors who experience a sexual awakening after their book club reads Fifty Shades of Grey — Fonda was asked by Extra about her real dating status.
“I’m not dating anymore, but I did up until a couple of years ago,” Fonda said. “I’m 80. I’ve closed up shop down there.”
While she’s closed up shop, she said that the film, which opens May 18, celebrates women continuing to enjoy sex into their later decades. The movie is “about very important things: friendship and sex — and that it’s OK for older women to have both,” said the actress, who also stars in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie.
Fonda’s new no-sex mantra is a contrast from what she said about the topic just several years ago. Asked in 2011 about the secret to her good looks — which we all, especially Megyn Kelly, know includes some professional work — she replied that it was largely due to “great sex.”
That was when she was dating music producer Perry, with whom she parted ways in January 2017. The pair described the split as amicable, telling People they would “maintain a close friendship.” Perry explained that “Jane has rededicated herself to activism and I am finishing my memoirs. So all is well with the Fonda-Perry relationship. We’re just starting a new chapter.”
Jane Fonda and music producer Richard Perry, pictured here in April 2016, announced the end of their eight-year romance in January 2017. (Photo: Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic)