What is Taylor Swift’s new BFF Lena Dunham doing now? The controversial Girls star once dated Jack Antonoff for 5 years – but is she making a new TV show starring Emily Ratajkowski?
Taylor Swift just debuted her brand-new bestie crew while out and about in London this week. Among other familiar faces was Lena Dunham, the ex-girlfriend of Swift’s long-time collaborator and close friend Jack Antonoff; Antonoff and Dunham’s relationship inspired Swift’s song “You Are in Love”.
Dunham was in the public eye in the 2010s thanks to her HBO show Girls, which was billed as a grittier Sex and the City, but has since wrestled with a series of health issues.
Here’s a refresher on the actress who played Hannah Horvath and what she’s been up to lately:
How did Lena Dunham get famous?
Dunham enjoyed a dramatic rise to fame soon after she debuted with the semi-autobiographical indie film Tiny Furniture in 2010 – which also stars her friend and later Girls co-star Jemima Kirke. Her success came most prominently from the HBO television series, which she created, wrote, partly directed, and starred in. The show also won her several Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe awards, critical acclaim and accolades. While Girls did face backlash and criticism for its lack of racial diversity and class consciousness, it remained a commercial success nonetheless.
What other films and TV shows has Lena Dunham worked on?
After Girls ended, Dunham notably starred in American Horror Story: Cult. In 2019, she acted in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood – but since then, she has stayed relatively out of the public eye.
Dunham was an executive producer for episode one of HBO’s Industry and later Genera+ion – cancelled after one season – whilst taking on small roles in The Stand In (2020) and Sia’s Music (2021). In 2022, Dunham wrote two films called Sharp Stick, and Catherine Called Birdy, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Her health battles
In 2018, at 31 years old, Dunham got a hysterectomy after battling endometriosis for 10 years. That year, Dunham also went into rehab for her addiction to benzodiazepines.
She also revealed this May – Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders Awareness month – that she was diagnosed with hypermobile EDS in 2019. She posted about it on her Instagram to raise awareness about the condition.
She started a podcast – and has written two books
During the pandemic, Dunham started a podcast called The C-word Podcast. Previously, in 2015, she launched a podcast called Women of the Hour with Lena Dunham, which also proved to be highly controversial – she once said she wished she had an abortion, per IndieWire.
During the lockdown in 2020, she also wrote a serialised romance novel for Vogue called Verified Strangers, which she referred to as a way of offering readers solace and a distraction from a time of “isolation and anxiety”.
But that wasn’t the first time she picked up a pen. Back in 2014, she released her first book Not That Kind of Girl, a New York Times bestseller. Once again, this book was also embroiled in controversy, and some accused Dunham of sexually abusing her sister, per Vox.
She followed it up with Is it Evil Not to be Sure? in 2017. She had previously announced a short story collection titled Best and Always, but it does not seem to have been published.
Is Lena Dunham married?
In 2021, she got married to musician Luis Felber – and Swift was her bridesmaid at the wedding.
Dunham and her ex Antonoff infamously broke up in 2018 after dating for five years.
What are Lena Dunham’s current projects?
Dunham is currently starring alongside Stephen Fry in the Holocaust-memory film Treasure, which just released in UK cinemas on June 14. The film is based on Too Many Men by Lily Brett and directed by Julia von Heinz.
She is also currently working on a romantic comedy for Netflix called Too Much starring Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe. It is also said to star Emily Ratajkowski, but her role is unknown as of now. Dunham told Radio Times magazine that she is not expecting a “Girls-sized reaction” with the show.
She just debuted a new look
Dunham surprised fans recently when she posted her new hair colour on Instagram. She had dyed her hair jet black, channelling the camp 1950s character Vampira. As for her fashion in the shot, she was wearing the brand 16Arlington.
