The image was so volatile that it still comes up more than four decades later: Jane Fonda sitting on an anti-aircraft gun used by North Vietnamese soldiers against American planes. On Wednesday night, the 80-year-old actress talked to Stephen Colbert about "the bad thing I did," and said she still regrets it, reports Mediaite. "I wasn’t even thinking what I was doing and photographs were taken and that image went out, and the image makes it look like I was against our soldiers, which was never the case," she says. "But that image is there and I will go to my grave regretting that. I knew right away that that was wrong."
The incident landed Fonda the derisive nickname Hanoi Jane, especially an image in which Fonda is seen peering through weapon's scope, as noted by the Hollywood Reporter. Fonda has previously called the photo a mistake, but it keeps coming up decades later, as it did when Megyn Kelly raised the issue anew in her recent public feud with Fonda. Despite the controversy, Fonda tells Colbert she doesn't regret the anti-war trip itself. (See the video here.) HBO has a new documentary about Fonda's life, and she recently discussed the impact of her mother's suicide with People. (More Jane Fonda stories.)