Jane Fonda and Bill Maher had an awkward chat on a recent podcast, with the actor calling the comedian “cynical” and him calling her “naive.”
The pair were discussing mortality on Club Random with Bill Maher, and Fonda said she didn’t want to live forever and wasn’t afraid of death, and that “life only makes sense if there is a beginning, a middle and an end.”
She went on to say that she wanted to be sure that she had “done everything I possibly could” and Maher then said she had.
“You are so cynical,” she told him, and Maher paused before replying: “And you are so naive.”
“You think so?” asked the star, and he responded: “Yes.”
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Fonda and Maher on Monday.
Things were also awkward as Maher touched on Fonda’s activism, saying: “Sometimes I wonder if we had a utopia it would be the greatest pain for you because you need to be…
“You’re there for the cause, absolutely sincerely, but also the cause is there for you a little. Am I wrong?”
Presley Ann/Getty Images for WIF
“You’re so different than me that it’s hard for me sometimes to even understand what you’re talking about,” the actor replied.
When Maher said the pair “must have a lot in common,” Fonda insisted: “I don’t think we do.”
Pushed on why, she explained: “Just your worldview is so totally different than mine. I just, I don’t see people the same way. I don’t see…”
“You think I’m a cynic,” Maher interjected. “I think you’re very cynical,” said the star.
When Maher asked whether Fonda thinks “the world makes you cynical,” she replied: “I don’t know, I’m not cynical. And I’ve been around longer than you. A good 20 years more. You could be my son. I’d put you on my knees and spank you… you’d probably like that.”
The podcast host responded: “No, I think I’m very normal. I think I’m very normal.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Maher said he “may quit” his HBO show Real Time because he’s “s******* his pants” over having to talk about Donald Trump. He said he was frustrated with the fact everything he has to say about Trump he has already said in the past decade.
“I did all the Trump stuff before anybody,” Maher said. “I called him a con man before anybody I did. He’s a mafia boss. I was the one who said he wasn’t going to concede the election. I’ve done it. I’ve seen this f****** [thing play out.]”
The Hollywood star said she found it “hard to believe” Trump had won again but challenged Maher to “do something else” on his show that wasn’t about the president-elect.
Maher responded: “The show is the politics, there’s no other thing and he’s going to dominate the news like he always does.”
The comedian has become increasingly critical of the Democratic Party. During a November episode of his show, titled “Tough Love Dems” on YouTube, he criticized its policy positions for alienating voters in this year’s presidential race, saying the party ultimately lost “a crazy contest to an actual crazy person.”
Maher criticized Democratic policies and decisions, which he said led to a Republican sweep of the White House, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and a conservative-majority Supreme Court.
In September, Fonda was busy canvassing for Kamala Harris in Michigan, knocking on people’s doors and handing out fliers.
During a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by an account called “Kamala for Michigan” Fonda said: “This is such an important election. I’m doing everything I can.”
Fonda went on to say she’d “never done this for a president,” before referencing her second husband, the activist and politician Tom Hayden, who was from Michigan.
The short clip concludes with Fonda handing out Harris campaign flyers and saying, “We have to, have to, have to get them elected.”
