On Tuesday’s episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Maya Hawke joined the chorus of famous women this week – among them Lorde, Olivia Rodrigo and Phoebe Bridgers while performing at Glastonbury Festival and Janelle Monaé at Sunday night’s BET Awards – to throw expletives and raise middle fingers to the Supreme Court.
Speaking out against the Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and federal abortion rights for American women, the 23-year-old “Stranger Things” breakout and daughter to Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke reflected on her mother’s own experience with abortion. She began by saying she called Thurman for advice earlier on Tuesday for what to talk about with Fallon.
“We just got into talking about the Supreme Court ruling and this essay that my mom wrote a couple of months ago when they were putting these further restrictions on abortion access, and it was sort of preceding this whole thing,” Hawke said, addressing the studio audience. “My mom wrote this really beautiful essay about her abortion that she got when she was really young, and about how if she hadn’t have had it, she wouldn’t have become the person that she’d become, and I wouldn’t exist, and how both of my parents lives would’ve been totally derailed if she hadn’t had access to safe and legal health care – fundamental health care.”
In the essay Thurman wrote, which ran in the Washington Post last fall, she called it “the hardest decision of my life.”
Speaking with Fallon, Hawke continued, clarifying that she knows people of her mother’s class and stature will “always be able to get abortions.” “But so many people, because of this ruling this week, will not only not be able to pursue their dreams, but actually lose their lives and be unsafe. And I just wanted to say that, like, f— the Supreme Court.”
To the crowd’s applause and Fallon’s encouragement, Hawke replied, “I can say, ‘F— the Supreme Court’? Oh, f— the Supreme Court! Yeah, rock on. But we’re going to keep fighting, and we’re gonna win, like our grandmothers did.”
“I appreciate you saying that.” Fallon said, adding, “Thank you for saying that message.”
Watch the full video above.
