Jane Fonda loves Lily Tomlin for many reasons. Being a peyote shaman isn’t one of them
Jane Fonda says that even though Lily Tomlin is a genius, she has no business being anyone’s psychedelic shaman.
This week, longtime besties Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin sat down with Stephen Colbert to talk about their new film, “Moving On,” but ended up dishing on the secret to their 40-year friendship.
Spoiler: It’ isn’t the peyote.
“I’ve always had really good experiences with peyote, but the time we took it together, it was horrible,” Fonda said Thursday on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
“I was totally paranoid ... it was the worst,” she continued. “I love it, but I wouldn’t do peyote unless you were with a guide.”
“Like a shaman,” Tomlin added. “As I am.”
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Colbert then asked if Fonda and Tomlin thought he needed some peyote and if it might help loosen him up a little bit.
“I think you need a little peyote, yeah. And I’ll be your guide,” Fonda said, emphasizing the “I” while gesturing to Tomlin and giving her shaman skills a big thumbs-down.
Fonda has been candid about her willingness to experiment with drugs over the years. In a 2018 appearance of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen,” the Oscar-winning actor was nonchalant in discussing that although she’d dabbled in drugs including ayahuasca and molly, she doesn’t like any of them. “I like cannabis to get to sleep,” she said.
And in a 2015 interview with GQ, she said peyote is “pretty wild” and that a downside is “you throw up a lot.”
By the time Jane Fonda retired from acting in 1991, she had assembled a diverse array of accomplishments: two lead actress Oscars, a workout video that became the bestselling VHS of all time, and a legacy of political activism that made her name synonymous with principled dissent.
When asked what the upside was, she said, “Well, you have visions. 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.”
Fonda added, “I’ve had breakthroughs on drugs, but I wouldn’t call them cosmic.”
While the film icon has proved that she’s a boss whether she’s acting, doing aerobics or popping party favors, her friends may be wise not to try to keep up.
Chelsea Handler revealed her own cautionary tale of hanging with Fonda to InStyle in 2021, saying, “One thing I learned from doing Quaaludes at Jane Fonda’s house was don’t do Quaaludes.”
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