Huge Day for People Who Still Cut Their Own Bangs

Lena Dunham’s memoir, Famesick, was released Tuesday, recounting the period of her life during and after Girls—her 20s, her time in rehab, grappling with online criticism, OCD, health issues, and her relationship with both Jack Antonoff and Adam Driver. In other words, it’s a huge day for the people (me) who lived in the liminal space between Brooklyn and Tumblr circa 2014 and still cut their own bangs. The tea is scalding hot and wrought with the emotional truth Dunham is loved (and hated) for, so let’s dive in.

Around 2017, Dunham’s 5-year relationship with Antonoff, whom she called her “one great love,” was grinding to a halt. She wrote that Antonoff had developed a “closeness” with a “teen pop star” that had been “striking an odd note.” And she didn’t come right out and say it was Lorde, but…c’mon. It was Lorde. We’ve all seen the PowerPoint. It’s pop culture canon at this point that Antonoff and Lorde had something going on during the recording of Melodrama. (See “Green Light.”)

“We were acting like we had six school-aged children we were in danger of losing custody of should we end the relationship,” Dunham writes. “But one of the last things we still shared was the sense that our ability to keep the relationship going was directly proportional to our inherent goodness.”

Dunham said they decided to break up after she had a brief affair with a childhood flame she calls Nick, while she was recovering from her hysterectomy.

“I’ve been through something awful. I don’t want to talk about it, but I need you to fuck me and I need you to do all of the work,’” she says she told Nick. She returned home to Antonoff after spending several days with him, thinking she had “exorcised the demon” in her relationship.

“In a way, I had fucked Nick for both our sakes, to make our house a home again. It would all be better now,” she wrote. The next morning, they decided to end their relationship.

“‘No matter what happens,’ I said, ‘you will always be my first great love.’ ‘And you’ll be mine,’ he wept.”

She also details her relationship with her Girls co-star, Adam Driver, writing that his behavior on set ranged from flirty and protective to violent, blurring the lines between Adam and Hannah and the real Adam and Lena. Dunham recalled Driver once hurled a chair at the wall next to her, punched a hole in his trailer wall, and screamed in her face.

“At the time, I didn’t have the skill to … it never entered my mind to say, ‘I am your boss, you can’t speak to me this way,’” Dunham told The Guardian, “And, at that point in my 20s, I still thought that’s what great male geniuses do: eviscerate you.”

“I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if Adam liked me,” she writes. “He could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing. He could also be protective, loving even.”

She also included a story of one night when they seemingly almost hooked up. During an evening when Driver’s girlfriend was out of town, he called her and asked if he could come up to her apartment.

“You still home alone, Dunham?” she recalls him asking. “Okay. I’m riding down to you. But I’m warning you, if I come up, I’m not leaving this time.” When Driver arrived, she ignored him, fearful of what would happen if they crossed that line. They never spoke of the incident again, and one month later, Driver was engaged.

“When my girl was away, I realized I’m no good alone,” he told her. “I need someone to keep me in line.”

Last year, Dunham wrote and directed the series Too Much, about a woman who moves to London after discovering her ex moved on with an influencer. Duhnham said the ex in the story was “an amalgamation of every ex that I’ve had.” Could it have been both Driver and Antonoff morphed together? If Dunham’s reliving of her Girls era is anything like the war flashbacks I experienced from the few excerpts alone, then consider me sat. 

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