The Oscar-winning actress was married to the billionaire entrepreneur from 1991 until 2001.

Jane Fonda breaks silence on ex-husband Ted Turner’s death: ‘I loved Ted with all my heart’

The Oscar-winning actress was married to the billionaire entrepreneur from 1991 until 2001.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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May 6, 2026 5:08 p.m. ET

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Jane Fonda and Ted Turner. Credit:

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty

- Jane Fonda is honoring to her late ex-husband, Ted Turner, after he died May 6 at age 87.

- The actress was married to the CNN founder from 1991 until 2001.

- Turner announced that he'd been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2018.

Jane Fonda is paying tribute to her late ex-husband Ted Turner with a lengthy statement.

"MY IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS ABOUT TED," Fonda began on Wednesday via Instagram, "He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I’ve never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever let me know they needed me, and this wasn’t your average human being that needed me, this was the creator of CNN, and Turner Classic Movies, who had won the America’s Cup as the world’s greatest sailor. He had a big life, a brilliant mind and a soaring sense of humor. "

The Oscar-winning actress was married to the CNN founder from 1991 until 2001.

"He could also take care of me. That was new as well. To be needed and cared for simultaneously is transformative. Ted Turner helped me believe in myself. He gave me confidence. I think I did the same for him, but that’s what women are raised to do. Men like Ted aren’t supposed to express need and vulnerability. That was Ted’s greatest strength, I believe," she continued.

Turner and Fonda in 2017.

Rick Diamond/Getty

Fonda said that Turner "taught me more than any other person or school classes" about nature, wildlife, hunting, fishing, business and strategy.

"Ted was supremely strategic. It was likely innate, but he studied the Classics in college, knew about the Peleponesian War inside and out and the strategies used by Alexander the Great and even Genghis Khan. And sailing big boats as he did further honed those strategic talents which he then brought into his businesses to much success. He could see around corners for sure," she wrote. "Next to Katharine Hepburn, Ted was the most competitive person I have ever met and that was fascinating to witness. Whether it was who’d made the most ski runs at the end of the day, to acres of land owned (stewarded is the more fitting word for his relationship to land), who had the most billions, how many countries he’d made love to his prior lover in and could I match that, it was challenging. Ted was challenging, but I’ve always been up for a challenge, and with Ted it was almost always worth it. "

Fonda noted that she loved "Ted with all my heart."

"I see him in heaven now with all the wildlife he helped bring back from extinction – the black footed ferrets, the prairie dogs, Big Horned sheep, Mexican Gray Wolf, the Yellowstone wolf pack, bison, the red cockaded woodpecker and so many more, they’re all gathered at the pearly gates applauding and thanking him for saving their species," she wrote.

She acknowledged Turner's five children. "Five talented, complex kids who I had the privilege of becoming stepmother to," she wrote. "I had four stepmothers growing up and I know how important stepmothers can be, so we all did our best to build an extended, rag tag family, and I love them to this day. If it was complicated to be married to him, think how complicated it was being his child. And they are all doing fine."

Fonda concluded: "Rest in Peace, dearest Ted. You are loved and you will be remembered."

Fonda has spoken fondly of her relationship with Turner in the decades since their split, revealing on an 2023 episode of the *Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend* podcast that the environmentalist was instrumental in helping her to find and embrace her own sense of humor.

“Spending 10 years with Ted, who is hysterical, oh my God he is funny,” she remarked at the time. “And outrageous. And I saw it’s okay to be outrageous. And that really helped me.”

She went on to compare Turner to a “sieve,” adding, “It just all comes out. But his take on life is just — like Lily [Tomlin’s] — it’s inherently funny.”

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The pair also used their voices for good during their marriage, working together to co-found the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential (GCAPP) in 1995. The charity organization works to "improve the overall health and well-being of young people" in the Peach state, per its website.

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Speaking at GCAPP's 30th annual EmPower Party and gala event last November, Fonda became emotional as she credited Turner with its continued success.

"It was a very challenging time in Georgia. Had I not been with Ted, this was something, had he not stood by me with his love and support, we never would have survived," she told the crowd, per PEOPLE.

She continued, "Ted’s not here, but he is here in my heart and I know he is here in a lot of our hearts."

Turner Enterprises announced the billionaire entrepreneur’s death in a May 6 statement.

"Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement," CNN CEO Mark Thompson said. "He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognize him and his impact on our lives and the world."

News of Turner's death comes eight years after he revealed in a 2018 interview with *Good Morning America *that he'd been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

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