‘My body’: Lena Dunham makes sad admission

Lena Dunham has revealed a pretty sad fact that exposes a much larger truth about the famous star.

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Lena Dunham has just revealed she decided not to cast herself in a leading role in an upcoming project because she’s “not up for having my body dissected again”, and it should make us all feel ashamed.

In a profile with The New Yorker she elaborated on her decision and said that she has learned protecting her peace is more important than rallying against body-shammers.

“I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you don’t care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work,” she said.

Lena is not starring in a new project to protect her peace. Picture: Instagram/LenaDunham

Lena’s been famous since her early twenties. Picture: Instagram/LenaDunham

It’s depressing that a talented actor, creator, and director would sideline themselves because of the response to their weight, but it isn’t Dunham’s fault.

It is everyone else’s because for as long as she’s been famous, commentary on her body has been so loud. Who can blame her for wanting to block it out?

For those who missed the iconic rise of Dunham, you know, that 2012 period when she became best friends with Taylor Swift over Twitter? Well, it was a time.

In her early 20s she co-created the controversial, critically acclaimed and hit television show Girls, which followed the lives of four friends trying to figure out their 20s in New York City.

It was the less glam version of Sex And The City; there was more awkward and fumbling sex scenes than aspirational ones.

It launched Dunham into the kind of fame that realistically no one could prepare for her. Depending on who you asked, she was the Millennial voice young women had been waiting for, or she was out of touch and cringe.

She got her big break in 2012. Picture: Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images)

Even back then her body was a conversation. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

When the show launched, Dunham, now 38, was in her early twenties, and even though she definitely fit into straight-sized clothing, her body and weight were a big talking point.

She was thin but, by Hollywood cultural standards, not thin enough.

The easiest way to summarise the scrutiny she endured is that usually, when female actors do sex scenes, people call them “hot” or “sexy”. When Dunham did a sex scene, she was called “brave”.

When Girls wrapped in 2017, Dunham continued to work on projects mainly behind the scenes and retreated from the spotlight.

She now primarily resides in London with her husband, Luis Felber, and is rarely spotted at big Hollywood gatherings.

Dunham has also gained weight. She’s discussed it on social media because she wanted to let fans know that isn’t a bad thing.

Her show Girls ended in 2017. Picture: Instagram/LenaDunham

Lena’s a hugely successful creator. Picture: Backgrid

Back in 2021 she expressed frustration that people online were comparing her old body to her new one when her thinner body hadn’t been thin enough to avoid her being body-shamed in the first place.

“It’s ironic to have my body compared to a body that was also the subject of public scorn, an echo chamber of body shaming. But lastly, when will we learn to stop equating thinness with health/happiness? Of course, weight loss can be the result of positive change in habits, but guess what? So can weight gain,” she said.

She also spoke toThe Guardian in 2022 and said that, in retrospect, it is “wild” to her that her body in her early twenties was the one “everyone critiqued”.

“What does that say to everybody else in the world? Now I’m able to very proudly be in the body I’m in, recognising what it’s taken to get here,” she asked.

Dunham’s done the work to love and accept her body and realise that being at your thinnest doesn’t automatically mean you’re at your most beautiful.

But, you know who hasn’t?

The rest of us, and until we do, we don’t deserve to see her shine again on screen.