Megyn Kelly took some Today time to address the strange feud between herself and Jane Fonda. As the host details above, the saga began months ago when Kelly asked 80-year-old Fonda about her plastic surgery. Fonda immediately recoiled while asking, “We really wanna talk about that now?” That could have been the end of it, but since that time, Fonda has been cracking jokes about Kelly on TV. And at Sundance over the weekend, Fonda told a Variety reporter that Kelly’s question was “inappropriate” and that she needs to “learn her stuff.”
Kelly finally addressed Fonda’s beef while defending the plastic surgery question and pointing out that they were discussing a film about aging. The host said she’d grown weary of Fonda’s “‘poor-me’ routine,” and she insisted that Fonda cannot have “an honest discussion” about aging without addressing her own surgeries. Then Kelly threw down Fonda’s “Hanoi Jane” past:
“Honestly, she has no business lecturing anyone on what qualifies as offensive. Look at her treatment of our military during the Vietnam war, many of our veterans still call her ‘Hanoi Jane’ thanks to her radio broadcasts, which attempted to shame American troops … [Fonda] called our POW’s ‘hypocrites and liars’ and referred to their torture as ‘understandable’ … So, the moral indignation is a little much… honestly, she has no business lecturing anyone on what qualifies as offensive.”
It must be noted that Fonda has openly admitted on several occasions to having plastic surgery, but she’s also said that she doesn’t like talking about it. The subject of aging is clearly a sensitive one for many people, but Kelly continued to defend her plastic surgery question by listing the many times that Fonda has discussed it with other outlets.
Of course, “Hanoi Jane” has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but the term tends to come up when people criticize Jane Fonda. It’s comparable to the Godwin’s law corollary that referring to someone as “Hitler” generally ends a discussion (and not in a good way), and Kelly may hope she can end the feud this way. Or maybe she knows that Fonda won’t be able to resist a retort, which is great for ratings.
(Via NBC)