Lena Dunham's new show, Too Much, premiered on Netflix on July 10. The romantic comedy is Lena's first big show since the generation defining Girls. While she's an eight time Emmy nominee and one of the most successful female showrunners of the last decade, Lena has faced a lot of controversy.
In 2014, Lena's memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, came out. The book almost immediately sparked conversations – both positive and negative. In it, Lena described how she shared a bed with her younger sister, Grace, and how when she was seven years old, she looked inside Grace's vagina.
"My mother didn’t bother asking why I had opened Grace's vagina," Lena wrote. "This was within the spectrum of things that I did."
© Getty ImagesLena went on to write that she persuaded her sister to "kiss her on the lips for five seconds" by offering sweets. The passages were shocking for many to read.
Soon after, Lena was accused of sexually molesting her sister. She responded on Twitter (now known as X), saying: "The right-wing news story that I molested my little sister isn't just LOL – it's really [expletive] upsetting and disgusting. And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid's vagina, well, congrats to you."
Lena called her responses on Twitter a "rage spiral," and soon after made a reconciliatory statement.
© Netflix"First and foremost, I want to be very clear that I do not condone any kind of abuse under any circumstances," Lena wrote in an op-ed to Time. "Childhood sexual abuse is a life-shattering event for so many, and I have been vocal about the rights of survivors. If the situations described in my book have been painful or triggering for people to read, I am sorry, as that was never my intention."
In later chapters in the memoir, Lena alleged a student at Oberlin College sexually assaulted her. She called him Barry and described him as a notable Republican at the school. Readers quickly began to connect the character to a real life Barry from Oberlin.
This Barry hired an internet defamation attorney after accusations started to ramp up. But, Random House, the publisher of the memoir responded to accusations, saying: "As indicated on the copyright page of Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham, some names and identifying details in the book have been changed." They continued, noting that "the name 'Barry' referenced in the book is a pseudonym."
© InstagamWhile Lena apologized for any offenses she made in her memoir, the controversies didn't end there. In 2017, she defended Girls writer Murray Miller after he was accused of sexual assault. But quickly after, she wrote to Twitter: "I naively believed it was important to share my perspective on my friend's situation as it has transpired behind the scenes over the last few months. I now understand that it was absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement and I am so sorry."
After the series finale of Girls premiered in April 2017, Lena stepped away from the screen. In 2021, she moved to London, and now calls both it and Connecticut her home. Lena married the British musician, Luis Felber, in September 2021 in an intimate ceremony with family and friends, including Taylor Swift.
Lena started working on Too Much, which is inspired by her own life.
"A girl moves to England. She meets a musician. They fall in love. That was the exoskeleton," she told The Hollywood Reporter. The writer told Variety: "It's certainly not quote-unquote based on a true story, but like everything I do, there is an element of my own life that I can't help but inject."
Lena has a small role in the show, but its lead actress is up-and-comer Meg Stalter, whose biggest role thus far is Kayla in HBO's Hacks. As Lena told The Hollywood Reporter, the rom-com follows a "loud, messy, complicated Jewess" as she "descends on a city of deeply repressed people."
© NetflixThe show is officially called a miniseries, but Lena told The Wrap that she "would love to do another season and short of shift it away from 'meet cute' and into 'marriage story.'"
