Turner Was Suicidal After Fonda Split

April 16, 2001 -- A month after CNN founding father Ted Turner apologized to Christians for making off-color remarks about them, the media magnate has revealed that his marriage to Jane Fonda dissolved partly due to her religious awakening.

In an interview published in The New Yorker, Turner says he was suicidal after he and Fonda, his wife of eight years, split in January 2000. Now vice president of the merged America Online-Time Warner conglomerate, Turner says that last year he was suicidal due to a bout of bad luck; after his marriage collapsed, he had a skiing accident, health problems, and was upset over losing control of the cable empire he founded.

Turner's father, Ed Turner, committed suicide when Ted was just 24.

"I felt like Job," Turner tells the mag. Speaking of biblical figures, Turner explains that his split from Fonda was hastened by her decision to spend more time studying them.

"She just came home and said, 'I've become a Christian,'" Turner says. "Before that, she was not a religious person … that's a shock."

The billionaire explains that his faith was destroyed when he lost his sister to terminal illness. "… I couldn't understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so," he told The New Yorker.

In late February, Turner outraged Christians by taunting the celebration of Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent, before about 300 people at CNN's offices in Washington, D.C.

Noticing that several staffers had ashes on their foreheads to mark the religious holiday, Turner reportedly stared at them and said, "I realized you're just Jesus freaks. Shouldn't you guys be working for [rival network] Fox?" He later issued an apology.