Jane Fonda, renowned activist and award-winning actress, has announced via Instagram that she has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “This is a very treatable cancer. 80% of people survive, so I feel very lucky,” she shared.
Fonda also shares that she has begun chemotherapy treatments and “has access to the best doctors and treatments.” She also comments on U.S. healthcare inequality, stating, “I realize, and it’s painful, that I am privileged in this. Almost every family in America has had to deal with cancer at one time or another and far too many don’t have access to the quality health care I am receiving and this is not right.”
Throughout her career, Fonda has earned two Academy Awards for the films Klute and Coming Home and an additional five nominations for various projects. She has also received five Emmy Award nominations and one win for the 1984 series, The Dollmaker. In recent years, Fonda has starred in Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, Ritesh Batra’s Our Souls at Night, and Bill Holderman’s Book Club, which will release an upcoming sequel. Fonda also holds recent voice-over credits in Apple TV+’s Luck, Disney’s Elena of Avalor, and the Stoner Cats series. She will star in upcoming films such as Paul Weitz’s Moving On and Kyle Marvin’s Eighty for Brady.
“We’re living through the most consequential time in human history because what we do or don’t do right now will determine what kind of future there will be,” Fonda continues. “I will not allow cancer to keep me from doing all I can,” she writes. Fonda pledges to use her resources to find “new ways to use our collective strength to make change.”
In March of 2022, Fonda launched the Jane Fonda Climate Political Action Committee, which strives to “do what it takes to defeat fossil fuel supporters and elect climate champions at all levels of government,” per the committee’s website. In her recent lymphoma announcement, Fonda urges readers to discuss not only cures “but about causes so we can eliminate them. For example, people need to know that fossil fuels cause cancer. So do pesticides, many of which are fossil fuel-based, like mine.”
Despite her diagnosis, Fonda promises to continue to fight for climate justice. “The midterms are looming,” she writes, “and they are beyond consequential so you can count on me to be right there together with you as we grow our army of climate champions.”