When Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff broke up in 2017, the internet had plenty of theories about an affair causing the end of their relationship. Now, Dunham’s new memoir has added fuel to the fire.
The 39-year-old actress revisited her relationship with her ex-boyfriend in the memoir Famesick, released on Tuesday, April 14.
She admitted cheating on him after feeling like a “ghost” when she saw Antonoff hanging out with a teenage pop star he was working with.
Highlights
- Lena Dunham's new memoir 'Famesick' released on Tuesday, April 14.
- Her explosive revelations fueled the rumor mill about Jack Antonoff and Lorde’s possible affair.
- She also admitted to cheating on him while Antonoff was on tour.
Lena Dunham’s latest revelations in her memoir fueled the rumor mill about Jack Antonoff and Lorde’s possible romance
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Antonoff was a “good man,” Dunham wrote in her memoir. But her struggles with her physical health took a toll on their romance.
While looking back at her relationship with the music produccer, whom she dated from 2012 until 2017, Dunham wondered why they “would not simply break up.”
“We were acting like we had six school-aged children we were in danger of losing custody of should we end the relationship,” she wrote.
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The actress was diagnosed with endometriosis (a chronic, often painful condition where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows in places it doesn’t belong) more than a decade back and had a hysterectomy in 2017.
While dealing with the painful medical condition, Dunham said Antonoff was spending his time “locked in a room with a teen pop star whose needs seemed as massive and complex as my own.”
She recalled a visit to her Grandmother’s house, where she FaceTimed him and saw that he and the pop star were in the recording studio of their apartment.
The Girls co-creator did not include the name of the teen pop star, who used to call her “Aunt Lena”
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“He was ensconced with a teen pop star I was too oblivious to be jealous of,” she wrote.
The name of the pop star, who used to call her “Aunt Lena,” was left out of the book.
However, longstanding speculations have linked Antonoff with Lorde in the past.
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The Girls co-creator recalled returning from a bone density test one day to find the pop star “sprawled across [their] sectional couch, weeping into Jack's lap as he told her that ‘your teens are for experimenting’” in a tone so comforting.
“...It almost brought tears to my eyes,” she added. “It had been so long since he'd spoken to me with that kind of expansive generosity.”
She even spoke to Antonoff about feeling like a “ghost” when she saw them together.
“‘You're just mad because she doesn't want to be your friend,’” she quoted Antonoff saying. “And he was right.”
Dunham returned from a bone density test one day to find the pop star “sprawled across [their] sectional couch”
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Dunham seemingly referenced the viral, unfounded online speculation about Lorde and Antonoff before their 2017 breakup.
She said she used to observe “careful boundaries” while they were dating, and even though she never “stopped flirting” with people, she wouldn’t take things “far enough that [she] could be declared out of bounds.”
But she felt Antonoff wasn’t observing such boundaries “as closely” as she was.
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“I wasn't paying attention, but the Internet sure was, and they made some pretty amazing PowerPoints on the issue, so convincing they had me rethinking events that I myself had been present for,” she wrote.
The subject of the viral PowerPoint was Antonoff’s rumored affair with Lorde.
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Dunham said she and Antonoff had the “worst ever fight” after undergoing a hysterectomy in November, 2017. They then decided to take a break.
During this time, she reconnected with a childhood friend and ex called Nick, while Antonoff was on tour.
“Up until now, I had seen myself as some kind of half wife, and so I had observed wifely code (you can mast**bate thinking about someone oxidizing metal, but you can’t touch!)” she wrote.
“But the events of the past few weeks had changed the game, and it was every woman for herself, just trying to survive.”
The 39-year-old actress admitted to cheating on Antonoff while he was away on tour
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Dunham wound up at Nick's apartment during a date with him and told him, “I’ve been through something awful. I don’t want to talk about it, but I need you to f*** me and I need you to do all the work.”
She said they slept together for a couple of weeks while the Bleachers frontman and former Fun band member was still on tour.
Dunham said she hung out with Nick because the only thing that could “save” her was “to be wanted.”
After Antonoff and Dunham ultimately broke up, she and Nick began an intense, three-month-long affair where they were mostly high. She said she was smoking marijuana with him and was also high on pain medications like Klonopin.
Antonoff proposed to her just a month after their first kiss, and she said yes. “I was high,” she wrote.
Both of them told their families about their engagement and began planning a wedding, but Dunham eventually checked into rehab for add*ction and broke up with Nick.
Antonoff married actress Margaret Qualley in 2023 while Dunham is married to Luis Felber
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Dunham has since married Luis Felber, whom she met and tied the knot with in 2021.
She met and married the musician in 2021.
“Sometimes I feel like I am boring on the phone with my friends, because I have a lovely husband who I adore collaborating with,” she told People in 2024.
Meanwhile, Antonoff married actress Margaret Qualley in 2023.
“Peak main character syndrome,” one commented after the release of Dunham's memoir
While promoting her new memoir, Dunham was subtly asked whether Lorde was the “teen pop star” in her book in a recent interview with the New York Times.
She playfully dodged the question by saying, “it was Connie Francis.”
Back in 2018, she was asked by The Cut whether she thought anything had happened between Lorde and Antonoff.
“I can never know someone else's life. I have never spoken to Ella [Lorde] about it. We haven't talked since Jack and I broke up,” she told the outlet.
“It was awful, and I couldn't do anything about it except trust that what he was saying to me was true,” she added.
“Very weird for a man in his 30s and a teen to be hanging out alone, nevermind alone in his apartment,” one commented online
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