‘I didn’t think I’d live this long’: Jane Fonda on reaching 80

These days, people are living a lot longer than their own parents and grandparents did.

On a recent episode of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, actress Jane Fonda stopped by for a chat. The host couldn’t believe Fonda was 80 and quizzed her on why she thought she lived so long.

“You know that when you were younger, you didn’t think 80 would feel like this, right?” Ellen asked the 9 to 5 actress.

“I didn’t think I’d live this long,” Jane laughed. “Are you kidding? If you had told me when I was 20 or 30 that I would actually still be acting, still active, at 80, on a show like this, I would have said you’re out of your mind. There’s no way. No.”

She added that she counts her blessings every single day for being alive and healthy. 

“I didn’t think I’d live this long, so every day I get up and I want to pinch myself because I feel very blessed,” she said. “But I’ve worked for it. I’ve tried hard to stay healthy”.

Ellen posted a photograph of Jane in her youth, which didn’t impress the Barefoot in the Park star one bit.

“I wouldn’t want to go back to that for anything,” she said, noting her life didn’t turn out exactly like she’d imagined.

“I definitely thought I was not going to live,” she continued. “I thought I was going to die lonely and probably from alcohol or something like that. The fact that I’m not an addict and I’m 80 and I’m working – it’s just a miracle to me.”

Jane also said she thought she got wiser with age.

“If you have a whole lot of time behind you, and just a little in front of you as is the case with me, I can look back and say, ‘well, I survived that’. Friends have died, there’s been divorces, there’s been all kinds of difficult things,” the Monster in Law star explained. “I survived. You don’t sweat the small stuff. You don’t make mountains out of molehills.”

She said older people tend to be less angry, less hostile and less anxious, but said the worst part about getting older was not being able to handle her liquor as well as she could when she was younger.

It’s not the first time she’s discussed her age in recent times. At the premiere of her new film Book Club earlier this month, the star admitted she’d given up on dating.

“I’m not dating anymore, but I did up until a couple of years ago,” she told Extra. “I’m 80,” she added. “I’ve closed up shop down there!”

In addition to Book Club, Jane is working on new episodes of the Netflix hit Grace and Frankie.

What do you think about Jane Fonda’s comments? Did your life turn out how you expected it to?