Jane Fonda recalls protecting her grandson from a wild bear: ‘I pushed it out’
Jane Fonda bravely pushed a bear out of her house while protecting her grandson, Malcolm Vadim, during a frightening encounter decades ago
Jane Fonda once protected her grandson from a wild bear after it broke into her house. On Tuesday, the Grace and Frankie star son made an appearance on Netflix's Skip Intro podcast alongside her son, Troy O'Donovan Garity. When asked to share something no one knows about his mother, the 51-year-old actor revealed that his mother once “pushed a bear out of her bedroom.”
Recalling Fonda's heroic moment, Garity said, “She was living in New Mexico, out in the wild…ish. And she was [taking] care, or looking after her grandson, who is in a crib in the bedroom.” The Sunshine actor was referring to his mother's now 25-year-old grandson Malcolm Vadim.
“She heard something so she left the bedroom in the middle of the night to go see what the sound was. And when she came back in, the screen door was dismantled and there was a bear in the bedroom, sniffing over the crib,” Garity went on.
As host Krista Smith was shocked at the revelation, she asked Fonda, “What did you do?” Garity then urged his 87-year-old mother to “go ahead,” after which she let out a loud roar while raising her arms up to appear larger. The trio then burst into laughter, with the Brooklyn Banker star apologising to the “sound man” in the studio.
“I had just learned what to do if you’re close to a bear. And that was it,” Fonda said, referring to her attempt at threatening the bear. “And get very big; I opened my bathrobe,” she went on before admitting that while she succeeded at drawing the bear away from the crib, it did not leave the house.
The Moving On actress revealed that the bear “urinated on the rug and then walked back to the door and sat down.” However, she managed to push it away. “I did, I pushed it out, yeah,” Fonda recalled.
