“Grace and Frankie” star Jane Fonda was arrested in Washington D.C. on Friday while protesting climate change.
In a video posted to Twitter by WUSA9 reporter Mike Valerio, the actress can be seen being led away from a climate change protest by U.S. Capitol Police. “[Jane Fonda] is the THIRD arrest here at the U.S. Capitol,” Valerio said in the tweet. Fonda’s hands appear to be zip-tied behind her back in the video, and onlookers can be heard shouting “Love you, Jane!”
ABC News later tweeted a close-up video of Fonda’s arrest, which you can watch below:
Multiple protesters, including Jane Fonda, arrested on the steps of the Capitol building, where they were demanding action on climate change. https://t.co/rAq8Xwi5fE pic.twitter.com/lIcxYeGd5Z
— ABC News (@ABC) October 11, 2019
The 81-year-old actress has a long history of activism, having notably stood against the Vietnam War which earned her the nickname “Hanoi Jane” in the 1970s. She also outlined her plan to incur weekly arrests in an interview with The Washington Post Thursday.
“I’m going to take my body, which is kind of famous and popular right now because of the [television] series and I’m going to go to D.C. and I’m going to have a rally every Friday,” Fonda told The Post. “It’ll be called ‘Fire Drill Friday.’ And we’re going to engage in civil disobedience and we’re going to get arrested every Friday.”
In a statement to TheWrap, U.S. Capitol Police said, “Today, the United States Capitol Police arrested 16 individuals for unlawfully demonstrating on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol. All were charged with D.C. Code §22-1307, Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding.”
Reps for Fonda did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Fonda also told the Los Angeles Times this week about her plan to get arrested, and how she got permission from Netflix chief Ted Sarandos himself to take four months’ time off from “Grace and Frankie” to dedicate to activism.
“Well, I went to Ted Sarandos, who’s the [chief content officer] of Netflix, and I asked him if he could give me a year off — a year’s hiatus from “Grace and Frankie” — so I could do this for a year. And he tried, and he couldn’t because of the contracts. I mean, there’s a lot of actors in the mix. And so four months is what I could get. And then when we finish, it’ll be a longer season because it’s our last season. Then I’ll come right back,” she told The L.A. Times.
She also added that her dedication to climate change activism was renewed by the young, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
“She read the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report and she realized that the crisis was barreling straight at us, like a train, and looked around and people weren’t behaving appropriately,” Fonda told the Times of Thunburg. “It so traumatized her that she stopped eating. I hadn’t realized that she stopped eating and speaking for almost a year. And that really hit me.”