Actress Jane Fonda, founder of the Committee for the First Amendment, came to the defense of actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, condemning Paramount for labeling him as “anti-Semitic”. The official statement, released in a note on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, denounces the studio’s stance following Ruffalo’s criticism of the Ellison family, Oracle’s support for Israel and the proposed $110 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Jane Fonda criticizes Paramount’s tactics
Fonda accused Paramount of trying to “smear” the actor. The aim, she said, would be to divert attention from legitimate concerns about the Ellison family’s business ties in the Middle East. The actress emphasized Mark Ruffalo’s fundamental right to express his opinions on politics, big corporations and the controversial merger.
In a statement, Fonda said, “Calling her criticism anti-Semitic is a smear meant to delegitimize criticism of the merger and distract from the question Paramount would rather not answer: Should a company be allowed to accumulate so much power over our movies, television and news?” She further recalled that the original Committee for the First Amendment was created to combat the tactics of “intimidating activists.”
Mark Ruffalo questioned merger and business ties
Fonda’s defense comes after Mark Ruffalo launched an attack on the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. in an Instagram post. In the text, he connected the business to the Ellison family’s ties to what he called the “genocide” in Gaza by Israel.
“This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to finance his son David’s acquisition of Warner Bros.,” Ruffalo wrote at the time. He added that these “profoundly frightening technologies” could be integrated into one of the world’s largest media conglomerates and used against people in the future.
Paramount condemned the actor’s statements
A Paramount spokesperson quickly responded to Ruffalo’s statements, calling them “anti-Semitic” and “a line that went too far.” The studio expressed concern about the invocation of “anti-Semitic tropes” in a business dispute, stating that terms such as “genocide” and “apartheid” as applied to a corporate transaction are incorrect and trivialize the very real suffering these words represent.
The company stated: “This does not deserve a response — and to be clear, we do not tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
Ruffalo responded to accusations of anti-Semitism
Mark Ruffalo, in turn, reacted to Paramount’s statement. In a lengthy social media post, the actor said the accusation that he was anti-Semitic was “shocking and fundamentally dishonest.”
“Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who provide it is not the same as criticizing the Jewish people,” Ruffalo explained in his rebuttal. He pointed out that this critical and necessary dialogue is often dishonestly framed as “anti-Israel.”
Committee for the First Amendment has a history of defending freedom
The Committee for the First Amendment, to which Ruffalo belongs, rejects the attempt to falsely label him an anti-Semite. The organization sees the action as an effort to divert attention from the central issue: the dangerous consolidation of media power that would result from the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
Bruce Cohen, an Oscar-winning producer and member of the Committee, expressed his discomfort with the use of false accusations of anti-Semitism to silence legitimate political criticism, especially as a Jewish-American. The Committee, focused on stopping the merger, calls on the media and other platforms to publicly reject these allegations and oppose the growing concentration of billion-dollar control over entertainment and news.
