Jane Fonda Admits Failing To Show Up For Her Kids Is 'Biggest Regret' Of Her Life: 'I Didn't Know How To Do It'

Looking back on areas in her life where she fell short, Jane Fonda admitted she's only now finding her footing when it comes to motherhood.

During a recent CNN interview, the 85-year-old actress confessed she was "not the kind of mother that [she] wished" for her three children: Mary, 55, Vanessa, 54, and Troy, 49.

"I’ve studied parenting, and I know what it’s supposed to be now. I didn’t know then," Fonda said on Who's Talking to Chris Wallace, emphasizing that she is now “trying to show up” for her brood.

"I have great, great children — talented, smart. And I just didn’t know how to do it," the Grace and Frankie star continued of her life's "biggest regret."

This wasn't the first time Fonda got candid about her relationship with her now-adult kids, saying to Net-a-Porter in March 2017: "When I die, I want my family to be around me. I want them to love me, and I have to earn that. I’m still working at it."

Fonda shares her middle child with former husband Roger Vadim, while she and second husband Tom Hayden are parents to Troy and Mary — whom they adopted in 1982. The 80 for Brady actress did not welcome any children with third husband Ted Turner before they divorced in 2001 following ten years of marriage.

Aside from sharing what she's learned regarding parenting in the later years of her life, Fonda previously got real about what else has improved with age: sex.

"Women, I think, tend to get better [over time] because they lose their fear of saying what they need," she candidly told Andy Cohen in July 2022. "We waste way too much time not wanting to say: ‘Wait a minute, hold it, hold it, no, no, no. Slow down, and a little to the left.'"

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

The former fashion model continued, "But when we get older, it’s like: ‘No, I know what I want. Give me what I want.'"

While teasing her own sex life, Fonda clarified that it's "solo" and "private."

Page Six reported on Fonda's television appearance.