Jane Fonda Offers Surprising Personal Praise of David Ellison Amid Paramount-Warner Bros Merger Drama

Jane Fonda arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Actress and liberal activist Jane Fonda had some surprisingly positive things to say about Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison despite her complete opposition to a merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Fonda took questions this week at the DVF Awards charity gala held during the Venice Film Festival, and she said she likes Ellison “very much,” which makes her vocal opposition to his $111 billion merger a bit awkward.

“It’s sad for me because I like David Ellison very much,” Fonda said, according to Variety.

The 88-year-old actress noted Ellison’s Skydance financed her Netflix series Grace and Frankie which ended in 2022.

“David’s Skydance financed Grace and Frankie, my seven-year-long run for Netflix, and I got to know him, and I like him. But that doesn’t change things. This is not a personal thing. This is what it will do to the entertainment industry, which is already suffering terribly,” Fonda said.

The Paramount/Warner Bros merger has been highly controversial, with some critics concerned over more of the entertainment and news industry being more consolidated and others worried over the Ellisons being well-known allies to the president. David Ellison’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, is a supporter of President Donald Trump, and Trump has cheered on the merger, which would see the Ellisons taking control of CNN, one of the president’s least-favorite news outlets.

Fonda was married to late CNN founder Ted Turner from 1991 to 2001 and she said he would be “absolutely heartbroken” over the merger. She also believes the merger, which has been delayed to 2027, would have serious negative consequences for the entertainment industry.

She said:

I am hopeful that we can stop it. They’re carrying so much debt. The Ellisons are carrying so much debt, and you know 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. There’s a very robust and growing movement to stop the mergers.

The Paramount/Warner Bros merger was halted in July following 12 state attorneys general bringing forth an antitrust lawsuit, with a judge finding attorneys general “raised serious questions about the anticompetitive nature of the deal.”

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