Dunham's work, as well as her outspoken presence onsocial media and in interviews, have attracted significant controversy, praise, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career.[11][12]
She has a younger sibling,Cyrus who appeared in Dunham's first film,Creative Nonfiction, and starred in her second film,Tiny Furniture.[16] The siblings were raised in Brooklyn and spent summers inSalisbury, Connecticut.[26]
While a student atOberlin College, Dunham produced several independentshort films and uploaded them toYouTube. Many of her early films dealt with themes of sexual enlightenment and were produced in amumblecore filmmaking style, a dialogue-heavy style in which young people talk about their personal relationships. In 2006, she producedPressure, in which a girl and two friends talk about experiencing an orgasm for the first time, which makes Dunham's character feel pressured to do so as well.[27][28] "I didn't go to film school", Dunham explains. "Instead I went to liberal arts school and self-imposed a curriculum of creating tiny flawed video sketches, brief meditations on comic conundrums, and slapping them on the Internet."[29]
Dunham on the set of her web seriesDelusional Downtown Divas (2009)
Another early film, entitledThe Fountain, which depicted her in a bikini brushing her teeth in the public fountain at Oberlin College, went viral on YouTube.[30][31] "Her blithe willingness to disrobe without shame caused an outburst of censure from viewers," observedThe New Yorker's Rebecca Mead.[16] Dunham was shocked by the backlash and decided to take the video down:
There were just pages ofYouTube comments about how fat I was, or how not fat I was," Dunham said. "I didn't want you to Google me and the first thing you see is a debate about whether my breasts are misshapen."[16]
Pressures (2006),Open the Door (2007),Hooker on Campus (2007), andThe Fountain (2007) were released asDVD extras withTiny Furniture.[32] In 2007, Dunham starred in a ten-episode web series forNerve.com entitledTight Shots,[33] described byThe New York Times Magazine'sVirginia Heffernan as "a daffy serial about kids trying to make a movie and be artsy and have tons of sex."[34]
In 2009, Dunham created theIndex Magazine web series,Delusional Downtown Divas, which satirized the New York City art scene. The production was unpaid, so Dunham and her friends "pooled their money from babysitting and art-assistant gigs and borrowed some camera gear."[35] Also in 2009, Dunham premieredCreative Nonfiction — a comedy where she plays Ella, a college student struggling to complete a screenplay[36] — at theSouth by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. She was initially rejected by the festival the year before; she re-edited and successfully resubmitted the film.[37]
The success ofTiny Furniture earned Dunham a blind script deal atHBO.[42] The network set Dunham up with veteran showrunnerJennifer Konner. Konner toldVulture'sJada Yuan that she got involved with Dunham because she was an obsessiveTiny Furniture fan:
I got a copy ofTiny Furniture from [HBO president]Sue Naegle. Actually, [New Girl creator]Liz Meriwether told me about it and said, 'Oh, there's this great movie. This girl, she's 23, she wrote, directed, and starred in it; she's in her underwear the whole time.' And I was like, 'I really don't want to see that.' And then she was like, 'Oh, trust me, it's great.' So Sue gave it to me just because she had it ... I used to, like, give out copies of the movie. But I'd just broken up with my writing partner and couldn't be less interested in the idea of supervising anybody. I really was like, 'I'm going to find my voice, and be on my own.' And then they called me and they were like, 'Oh, theTiny Furniture girl is doing a show, do you want to supervise her?' And I was like, 'Yes! One million percent. Sign me up. Totally on board.'[43]
Dunham's star also rose when she was profiled byDavid Carr inThe New York Times; he was later credited with introducing her toJudd Apatow.[44] Apatow watchedTiny Furniture, and was surprised Dunham had also written and directed the film. "I emailed her and told her I thought it was great", Apatow toldThe Hollywood Reporter. "It turned out she was in the middle of negotiating a deal to develop a show for HBO and that her partner was Jenni Konner, whom I had worked with onUndeclared and a bunch of other projects. They asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, and I was thrilled to jump in."[45]
2012–17: Mainstream success withGirls and first book
Dunham's television series,Girls, was greenlit byHBO in early 2011.[46] Three episodes were screened to positive responses at the 2012 South by Southwest Festival.[47] The series follows Hannah Horvath (portrayed by Dunham), a 20-something writer struggling to get by in New York City. Some of the struggles facing Dunham's character Hannah—including being cut off financially from her parents, becoming a writer and making unfortunate decisions—are inspired by Dunham's real-life experiences.[48]
Dunham saidGirls reflects a part of the population not portrayed in the 1998 HBO seriesSex and the City. "Gossip Girl was teens duking it out on theUpper East Side andSex and the City was women who [had] figured out work and friends and now want to nail romance and family life. There was this 'hole-in-between' space that hadn't really been addressed," she said.[48] The pilot intentionally referencesSex and the City, as producers wanted to make it clear that the driving force behindGirls is that the characters were inspired by the former HBO series and moved to New York to pursue their dreams.[48] Dunham herself says she "revere[s] that show just as much as any girl of my generation".[48]
The first season premiered on HBO on April 15, 2012, and received critical acclaim.The New York Times applauded the series, writing that "Girls may be themillennial generation's rebuttal toSex and the City, but the first season was at times as cruelly insightful and bleakly funny asLouie on FX orCurb Your Enthusiasm on HBO."[49] James Poniewozik fromTime had high praise for the series, calling it "raw, audacious, nuanced and richly, often excruciatingly funny".[50] Despite the acclaim, the series also generated criticism over its lack of racial representation and Dunham's frequent on-screen nudity.[51][52]
Girls was renewed for a second season in April 2012, before the first season had finished airing.[56] The first-season finale drew over one million viewers.[57] The second season ofGirls continued to receive critical acclaim. David Wiegland of theSan Francisco Chronicle said: "The entire constellation of impetuous, ambitious, determined and insecure young urbanites inGirls is realigning in the new season, but at no point in the four episodes sent to critics for review do you feel that any of it is artificial".[58] Verne Gay ofNewsday said: "Sharper, smarter, more richly layered, detailed and acted".[59] Ken Tucker ofEntertainment Weekly felt that "As bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as it was in its first season,Girls may now be even spunkier, funnier, and riskier".[60] The second season ran on HBO from January 2013 to March 2013, with third and fourth seasons subsequently being renewed. The third season ofGirls premiered in January 2014 with over one million viewers.[61] The following month, Dunham hosted an episode ofSaturday Night Live with musical guestThe National.[62]
In late 2012, Dunham signed a $3.5 million deal withRandom House to publish her first book.[63] The book, an essay collection calledNot That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned", was published in September 2014.[64] It reached number two onThe New York Times Best Seller list in October 2014.[65] On January 5, 2015, days before the premiere of the fourth season,Girls was renewed for a fifth season,[66] despite dwindling viewership.[67] That year, Dunham launched A Casual Romance Productions, a production company to develop television and film projects.[68] The company producedIt's Me Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise.[69] On February 20, 2015, it was reported that Dunham had been cast in a guest role in an episode of theABC drama seriesScandal, which aired March 19, 2015.[70]
In February 2018, A Casual Romance Productions announced that it would be producingCamping, a remake of the British comedy seriesof the same name for HBO, withJennifer Garner in the lead and Dunham and Konner as showrunners and writers.[79][80] On July 25, 2018, the series held a panel at theTelevision Critics Association's annual summer press tour featuring executive producerJenni Konner and cast member Jennifer Garner.[81] The following day, a teaser trailer for the series was released.[82]Camping was met with a mixed to negative response from critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes, the first season holds a 28% approval rating, with an average rating of 5.1 out of 10 based on 32 reviews. The website's critical consensus was: "The first season ofCamping makes it difficult to determine who the least happy campers are: those on the screen or those watching it."[83]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 49 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[84]
In August 2018, it was announced Dunham would appear in the filmOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood, directed byQuentin Tarantino, which released on July 26, 2019.[85] Dunham portrayed the role ofCatherine "Gypsy" Share.[86] In October 2018, coinciding with the expiration of their joint HBO contract, Dunham and Konner split as producing partners and dissolved their production company.[87]
In 2019, Dunham and Alissa Bennett started a podcast calledThe C-Word Podcast produced byLuminary.[90] Dunham launched a new production company namedGood Thing Going the same year, which had a first look deal with HBO.[91]
In response to the2020 coronavirus pandemic, in March 2020 Dunham announced she would write a serialized novel,Verified Strangers, as a response to social isolation. She added that the act was a response to help herself and the readers in a time of anxiety.[92] The serialization started later that month on theVogue website.[93] Dunham directed and served as an executive producer on the first episode of HBO'sIndustry.[94] That same year, she appeared inThe Stand In directed byJamie Babbit.[95] In 2021, Dunham had a small role inMusic, directed bySia.[96] She also served as an executive producer onGeneration, a dramedy forHBO Max.[97]
In July 2025, Dunham and her husbandLuis Felber created and released theNetflix seriesromantic comedy television seriesToo Much starringMegan Stalter andWill Sharp under theWorking Title Television and Dunham's companyGood Thing Going. Dunham directed, produced and wrote the series and received positive reviews from critics.[101] After the release of the show in September, Dunham announced her second memoirFamestick.[102]
On January 20, 2026, Dunham moderated the launch event forJennette McCurdy's debut novel, Half His Age, at The Town Hall in NYC.[103]
Dunham has appeared on several magazine covers, includingVogue,Elle,Marie Claire,Popular Mechanics, andRolling Stone. After Dunham posed with bare legs forGlamour's February 2017 cover, she praised the magazine for featuring an unedited photo and leaving thecellulite on her thighs visible.[104]
In November 2017, following Dunham and Konner's controversial letter denouncingAurora Perrineau's accusation of sexual assault byMurray Miller,Zinzi Clemmons announced that she would no longer contribute to the newsletter because she felt Dunham was insufficiently sympathetic to women of color.[110]
In October 2018, Dunham and Konner announced thatLenny Letter would be shutting down,[9][111] reportedly due to a decline in subscribers and failure to build momentum upon other platforms.[112]
Dunham has received criticism for her production of the filmOrgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste. Hundreds of women and men claim that Dunham's production company was responsible for using their images without their consent, filing a lawsuit against Netflix to disallow the film, signing petitions, and creating viral videos protesting the violation.[113][114][115] The film reportedly relies on "personal journals" attorneys have claimed to be fabricated despite the film presenting itself as a documentary.[116]
Dunham's work and her outspoken presence on social media and in interviews have attracted significant controversy, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career.[11][12]
Dunham claimed in her bookNot That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" that she had been sexually assaulted by her formerOberlin College classmate, whom she referred to as "Barry".[117][118] The attorney of Dunham's former classmate characterized the description of "Barry" as so detailed that it clearly identified his client. Dunham later apologized and Random House reprinted the book with a disclaimer and a statement saying: "Random House, on our own behalf and on behalf of our author, regrets the confusion."[119]
Other passages in the book recounted multiple incidents ofsexual interactions between Dunham and her sibling,Cyrus who is over six years younger, beginning in Cyrus’ infancy, and continuing until Cyrus was 11 years of age.[120] Dunham's description of these interactions prompted numerouseditorials about childhoodsexual abuse.[121] In response, Lena Dunham publicly apologized for her "comic use of the term “sexual predator”"[122] for writing about her behavior (between the ages of 7 and 17) as “Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban [child] I was trying,”.[123]
Upon release,Girls was met with criticism regarding the all-white main cast in theculturally diverse setting of New York City.[125] However, some pointed out that many Americans are friends with people of the same race, and adding a "token" African-American or Asian-American friend would be inauthentic and inconsistent with reality.[126] However, afterDonald Glover guest starred as Sandy, a black Republican and Hannah's love interest in the first two episodes of season two, the casting and storyline was criticized astokenism in response to the initial backlash from the first season.[127]
Dunham spoke publicly about the criticism on several occasions; in an interview withIndieWire, she said:
I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs. Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting. If I had one of the four girls, if, for example, she was African-American, I feel like... there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to... each character was a piece of me or based on someone close to me... I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can't speak to accurately.[128]
In November 2017, Dunham defendedGirls writerMurray Miller, whom actressAurora Perrineau had accused of sexually assaulting her in 2012 when she was seventeen. Dunham responded to the accusations by saying: "While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year."[129] Dunham was described as a "hipster racist" for her defense of Miller, as Perrineau is of mixed race.[130] In December 2018, Dunham stated that, contrary to her previous statement, she had no "insider information" that exonerated Murray, and wrote a letter of apology to Perrineau.[131][132]
In December 2016, Dunham observed on her podcast, Women of the Hour, that she never had anabortion, but wished she had, so as to better understand women who have experienced it. The comment was widely condemned as insensitive and distasteful.[133][134] Dunham later issued a lengthy apology on her Instagram.[135]
In 2012, Dunham began datingJack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of the bandfun. and the founder ofBleachers.[136] Dunham and Antonoff remained together until December 2017; they subsequently separated announcing that the separation was "amicable".[137][138]
In July 2020, Dunham reported onInstagram her experience withCOVID-19 because she observed people were not takingsocial distancing seriously. Though she was not hospitalized, she did have "severe symptoms for three weeks".[145]
After a mutual friend set them up on a blind date, Dunham began dating English-Peruvian musicianLuis Felber in January 2021.[146][147] In September 2021, Dunham and Felber married in a Jewish ceremony at the Union Club inSoho.[147][148]
In the fall of 2012, Dunham appeared in a video advertisement promoting PresidentBarack Obama's re-election, delivering a monologue, which, according to a blog quoted inThe Atlantic, tried to "get the youth vote by comparing voting for the first time to having sex for the first time".[152]Fox News reported criticism from conservatives such asMedia Research Center's Lauren Thompson, public relations professionalRonn Torossian, and media trainer Louise Pennell, who described the advertisement as tasteless and inappropriate due to likening voting for Obama to losing one's virginity.[153] Dunham defended the ad by tweeting "The video may be light but the message is serious: vote for women's rights." InThe Nation,Ari Melber wrote "the ad's style is vintage Lena: edgy and informed, controversial but achingly self-aware, sexually proud and affirmatively feminist."[154]
In 2014, Dunham was named the Recipient of Horizon Award 2014 byPoint Foundation for her support of the gay community.[155]
In April 2016, she wrote in support ofHillary Clinton, pledging to move toVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, ifDonald Trump won the election.[156][157] Dunham rebuked Trump for theAccess Hollywood tape.[158] After Trump's win, Dunham wrote she will not be moving to Canada, saying, "I can survive staying in this country, MY country, to fight and love and use my embarrassment of blessings to do what's right."[159]
^"Lena Dunham Goes on 'Rage Spiral' After Abuse Allegations".TIME. November 3, 2014. RetrievedDecember 27, 2025.In her memoir Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham writes about bribing her little sister, Grace, with candy in exchange for kisses as a child. "Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying," Dunham writes. She also details an instance where, as a 7-year-old, she examined her baby sister's vagina.