Diane Von Furstenberg and Jane Fonda pose together during an honorees lunch ahead of the DVF Awards on Sept. 3, 2026. The luncheon was held at the Venice, Italy home of von Furstenberg and Barry Diller. Diane von Furstenberg watched as Jane Fonda opened up on a range of subjects from Hollywood mergers to toxic politics on Thursday in Venice, Italy and couldn’t help but notice something about the iconic actress and activist.
“You are so much stronger than you’ve ever been,” praised the fashion designer as Fonda came quickly with a reason for her steely spirit. “Well, I’m almost 90, and so it’s easier to be so. I’ve always been brave. I just didn’t always know what to be brave about until my mid-30s. It’s like resilience, you’re either born with it, or you’re not,” said Fonda, per reports in Variety, WWD and The Wrap.
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The discussion happened on a busy Thursday in Venice for both women as von Furstenberg mounted her 17th annual DVF Awards, an event designed to spotlight “extraordinary women” and global changemakers dedicated to making the world a better place.
As such, von Furstenberg selected a roster of five honorees to fete: Fonda, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Amor Mottley, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario, Food4Education founder and CEO Wawira Njiru and author, advocate and survivor Gisèle Pelicot. Held at Teatro Carlo Goldoni, the ceremony also featured media maven Tina Brown, model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss and Anita Hill as presenters, with a performance by singers Noa and Mira Awad.
“These women are the very best of humanity,” said von Furstenberg upon taking the stage on a date that coincided with the death of feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Both von Furstenberg and Fonda dedicated the night to Steinem. “Gloria Steinem, the superwoman feminist icon and my very dear friend passed away. As we commit to continue to follow her path, I would like to dedicate this evening to her.”
Said Fonda during her speech: “Tonight is dedicated to Gloria Steinem, and I do believe that she lives on in the changed lives of so many women, including my own.”
She delivered remarks in front of an audience that included von Furstenberg’s significant other, billionaire Barry Diller, Huma Abedin Soros, Jewel, Edward Enninful, Cornelia Brandolini, Georgina Brandolini, Mayor of Venice Simone Venturini, Jean “Johnny” Pigozzi, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Hamilton South, Jürgen Teller, influential interior designer and art dealer Axel and May Vervoordt, Fareed Zakaria, Dries van Noten and more. Following the ceremony, guests gathered for a buffet dinner at Moro Restaurant at Palazzo Franchetti, hosted in partnership with Casa Tua, which will open a Venice location at the palazzo in early 2027.
Von Furstenberg also welcomed the honorees into her home earlier in the day for a special luncheon. Also taking place during the DVF Awards event was a press gathering that saw journalists reportedly grilling Fonda on a variety of subjects that she was game to discuss. Credit that strength for how Fonda tackled the proposed Paramount Pictures merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, the fallout surrounding Mark Ruffalo’s comments against the merger amid claims of antisemitism, data centers, climate change and “tech bros, oligarchs and billionaires” attempting to live forever.
Of the latter, Fonda stated, “They want to live forever, while they’re killing the rest of us. There’s two things: Most of these guys, these tech bros and these oligarchs and billionaires, they feel that the laws that the rest of us live by don’t matter to them, including the laws of physics. Natural laws. They’re going to live forever. The other [thing] is that because these guys can’t have babies, they’ll create robots. That’ll be their babies, and they’ll just turn the rest of us into tradwives, who have a lot of babies too. Then they’ll take away the vote. Can you believe it? And we’re not going to stand for it.”
Fonda, who got to know Paramount boss David Ellison while making her long-running hit show Grace and Frankie for Netflix, then slammed the proposed merger but said it’s nothing personal to her friend.
“They’re carrying so much debt. The Ellisons are carrying so much debt, and it’s being postponed now, so that they have to pay these huge sums. The merger would be terrible for consumers. Prices would go up. Thousands and thousands of people would lose their jobs, and as a creative, the fewer studios there are, the fewer places that we can take our products. We lose bargaining power. Unions lose their power,” said Fonda. “There’s a very robust and growing movement to stop the mergers. It’s sad for me because I like David Ellison very much. David’s Skydance financed Grace and Frankie, my 7-year-long run for Netflix. I got to know him, and I like him, but that doesn’t change things. This is not a personal thing.”
She’s not scared of speaking out, nor is she afraid of the president. “I’ve had my life. [President Donald] Trump can do nothing to me. I’m not scared, but that’s not true for everyone,” she said as she then encouraged others to support the Committee for the First Amendment, which she launched. “More and more people are speaking out because their whole lives are at risk right now. AI could take everything away, and then data centers are being put in their neighborhoods, so there’s been a shift in the U.S. Things are changing. Republicans and Democrats alike are saying, ‘No, you’re not going to put a data center in my community.’ We can see now that even MAGA members are not liking the fact that their leaders are profiting off misery and cruelty. They don’t like the chaos that’s happening.”
Fonda also doesn’t like how Ruffalo is being treated amid antisemitism claims for opposing the merger. “Larry Ellison, because he doesn’t like Mark Ruffalo’s position on the merger, accuses him of antisemitism, when he said nothing that isn’t within his constitutional right to say. It’s a tactic they’re using. He should be ashamed of himself, Larry Ellison. But there’s a lot of support for Mark. A lot of people came forward.”
Amid so much activist work and bold statements, Fonda also said she misses her other job in front of other kinds of cameras. “After five years of not working as an actor, I have to confess, much as I love the work that I do with my comrades in the movement, I miss the process of becoming somebody else. It is such a thrilling process. I love it. I miss it,” said Fonda, who was quick to add that she’s developing an adaptation of the bestselling novel The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. “I’m doing it for Lionsgate with the film company called Hidden Pictures. We have a good first draft, and we’re looking for a director,” she teased.
Von Furstenberg and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation launched the DVF Awards in 2010 as a way to spotlight and support “extraordinary women” dedicated to “transforming the lives of other women; women who have had the courage to fight, the strength to survive and the leadership to inspire.” Five trophies are handed out to women, along with a grant to each honoree, a gift bestowed to their respective nonprofit organizations to help propel and support their work.
See more from inside the event below.
Huma Abedin, Lynsey Addario, Karlie Kloss, Diane Von Furstenberg and Wawira Njiru at the luncheon. Said Addario: “We cannot let the horrors around us become running statistics. We must stand for freedom of the press, and for the importance of journalism as one of the fundamental principles of democracy.” A shot of the atmosphere during the DVF Awards inside Teatro Carlo Goldoni. Diane Von Furstenberg speaks during the DVF Awards in Venice, Italy on Sept. 6, 2026. Karlie Kloss, Tina Brown and Jane Fonda. Brown feted Addario by saying, “To say that Lynsey Addario is one of the world’s greatest war photographers is to understate the case. She’s one of the world’s greatest photographers, period. She makes images you could gaze at for hours — and others that are hard to look at for even a few seconds, because what they depict is so harrowing.” Courtesy of DVF Awards Tina Brown, Barry Diller and Karlie Kloss Courtesy of DVF Awards Barry Diller catches up with Jane Fonda while Diane Von Furstenberg chats with Simone Venturini. Amina Mohammed, Mia Mottley, Wawira Njiru, Karlie Kloss, Tina Brown, Lynsey Addario, Jane Fonda, Anita Hill, Gisele Pelicot and Diane Von Furstenberg Courtesy of DVF Awards Honorees Jane Fonda and Gisele Pelicot with Diane Von Furstenberg. Courtesy of DVF Awards Said Fonda in closing: “Most importantly, we have to stay hopeful. I’m hopeful because I’m giving it 100 percent. And hope is a muscle when you use it.”
Courtesy of DVF Awards THR Newsletters
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