The worst drug experience of Jane Fonda’s life: “I was really paranoid”
Coming through into the public’s cultural consciousness in the 1960s, Jane Fonda was around at the height of the countercultural movement in America, which naturally meant that she was around at a time in American history in which drug use was rampant, something that she never personally shied away from.
Sure enough, Fonda was not a massive drug taker back in the day, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t partake in the odd toke or the odd tab. Of course, we know Fonda best as an actor who has given countless brilliant performances in the likes of Klute, Coming Home, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Julia and On Golden Pond, among many others.
Fonda’s brother, Peter, had also been known to get nicely involved in the American drug scene, most notably in his iconic role in Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, through which the pair captured a striking sense of reality as they made their way across the United States, in a desperate search for freedom.
Fonda had her own quests for psychedelic enlightenment on a number of occasions, but there was one time in which she ended up having a terrible experience, as is sometimes the case when people decide to trip. The actor once revealed all when speaking with Stephen Colbert and her Grace and Frankie co-star and best friend, Lily Tomlin.
There’s an episode of Grace and Frankie in which Tomlin and Fonda’s characters take peyote, and in preparing for the scene, the duo set about on a psychedelic form of method acting, although it seemed to go all wrong for Fonda, who noted, “I’ve always had really good experiences with peyote, but the time we took it together, it was horrible. I was totally paranoid.”
“Oh yeah, it was the worst,” she added. “I love it, but I wouldn’t do peyote unless you were with a guide.” Peyote is a small cactus native to Mexico and Southwestern Texas that contains psychoactive alkaloids, including mescaline. Taken for its hallucinogenic properties, peyote has been used for more than 5,000 years by Indigenous communities, although taking it as a layperson is recommended with an experienced shaman.
Fonda had previously spoken of her experiences taking peyote in an interview with GQ and noted, Oh, I’ve taken peyote! It’s pretty wild. You throw up a lot. It’s not my drug of choice; I’ve never had any profound visions, but many of my friends have. You see incredible shapes and colors and patterns, and sometimes you have cosmic breakthroughs. I haven’t.”
According to the actor, though, she has had many “breakthroughs” under the influence of drugs, although she would resist calling them “cosmic” in nature. It seems like the time that Fonda took peyote with Lily Tomlin was a moment in which she rolled the dice of psychedelic and ultimately lost. Still, like the true champion she is, she seemed to come through the other side unscathed to tell the tale.
Kicking around in Hollywood at the height of the counterculture movement in the late 1960s, Jane Fonda was naturally introduced to the world of mind-bending drugs, and she never shied away from expanding her consciousness. Several decades later, she had one of her worst-ever trips, though thankfully, she was in the safe company of one of her best friends, who saw her through the experience.
