Back in January of 2013, Lena Dunham was a Fast Company cover star, one of our Most Creative People in Business for that year. She shared the space with benefactor Judd Apatow, who had (correctly) sensed from her debut film, Tiny Furniture, that Dunham maybe had a hit TV show in her. Just a year after the ubiquitously blogged-about Girls premiered, Dunham seemed to have the world in the palm of her hand–whichever controversy du jour surrounded her at any given moment propelling her show even more indelibly into the public eye.
In the nearly six years since, however, Fast Company has watched as the situation has reversed–with Dunham’s creative projects consistently overshadowed by the controversy that follows her every utterance.
In her own way, Lena Dunham has since become a karmic counterbalance to Donald Trump. Much like the president, it’s impossible to tell whether Dunham’s many notoriously tone-deaf remarks are the result of carelessness or meticulously curated attempts at provocation. The main difference between the two in this regard is that Trump refuses to apologize for anything ever, and Dunham’s apology machine operates in perpetuity like Fleetwood Mac’s farewell tour.
Although the writer and TV star has undoubtedly earned much of the ire she’s incurred, unlike Trump even her many detractors can probably summon some sympathy for her. Or at least, they should after reading the profile New York Magazine published Monday morning, which is in-depth both gynecologically speaking and otherwise.
Writer Allison P. Davis masterfully captures all of Dunham’s contradictions in the profile, which presents the chronic illness-plagued artist at the end of a year in which she lost her fertility and broke up with both her long-term boyfriend (Jack Antonoff) and long-term creative partner (Jenni Konner.) It’s an intimate portrait full of the intensely personal details one might expect, and it even contains some optimism for the future. (Dunham has smartly decided to step back from working with Time’s Up, following a PR disaster in 2017, and is reportedly focused on using her platform to help other people tell their stories.)
However, it wouldn’t be a Lena Dunham profile if it weren’t full of wildly cringe-inducing moments that seem destined to trigger an entire wave of future apologies. (And a strong suggestion that Dunham does indeed deliberately create such moments on purpose.) Here are the 20 most cringey details from the profile:
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