Lena Dunham, actress and writer, reflects on the release of “Famesick,” her new memoir. “Not That Kind of Girl,” her first book, was a collection of essays on growing up. “Famesick,” a chronological look at Dunham’s rapid rise to fame, is a collection of essays about growing up. It focuses on her struggle with endometriosis during the filming of “Girls,” and her high-profile relationships, including her long-term relationship with Jack Antonoff, her “Girls,” co-star Adam Driver.
Lena Dunham is candid about her emotional memoir release
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Dunham shared a series of photos on April 21st that showed her wearing headphones throughout her life. She thanked her fans and reflected on her long press tour to promote her book.
She wrote: “The last seven days were a whirlwind. I marched through them all with as much purpose and determination as I could muster, vowing to be both boundaried and present, open to connection and self-protective- an impossible dance. “But I wanted everything I couldn’t do almost ten years ago, when I last poked out my head to this degree. I knew exactly why I was doing this, and I left little room to experience the reality of publishing my last two decades.
“That’s sort of a goodbye, isn’t it?” She added that the real reason for laying down our definitive story was so we could move on.
Dunham talks about returning to her ‘adopted homeland’
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Dunham, who left the U.S. to go to London, recalled her long journey back home as she listened to Grace Ives’ song “Stupid B-tches” on a Friday morning at 1:30 am. She said that she was in Boston’s car at 1:30 am to “blow toward the plane which would take me back to my adopted homeland from my first homeland.”
“So, on a new road, I put on my headphones, cranked my current favorite woman’s anthem, stupid B-tches (by Grace Ives), and had one of those moments where you wonder, ‘Did I do acid by mistake?’ I was every Lena that has ever worn headphones!” She recalled, listing “Lena when she was 23 in LA taking Fountain to my HBO meeting. Lena, aged 8, and her first Walkman. Lena watching a city pass at 25, 29, 33. Lena, 35, falling in love. Lena, 38, missing her parents.
She continued, “I was both the Lena that wrote the book and also the Lena that was afraid to write the book.” “And finally, I am the Lena that has finished the book.”
Lena Dunham explains why she was’sobbing’
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This realization caused her to have an emotional moment. She wrote: “Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was sobbing. (rarer than one would think!) It was a strong feeling that the story i’d been carrying was not the one i was living. The story in those pages had ended. “The only thing I could compare this to was when it feels interminable, and then… it passes.”
She continued to thank her fans, saying, “Thanks, from the bottom my heart, to all who have welcomed the book with gentleness and care.” “Thank you to everyone who came and laughed with us during the tour.”
“Thank you everyone who made this wonderful passing through possible. She continued, “I am full of a dense gratitude. A gratitude that has changed something previously unchangeable.” She concluded her lengthy Instagram post by writing, “It is a feeling I would wish for everyone who I love, love, will love or don’t know. I love meeting you on the other side.”
Dunham wrote the book one month after leaving rehab
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In a September 2025 Instagram post, Dunham recalled that she began writing the book 30 days after leaving rehab. “I was in a cloud of delirium, which comes with new sobriety. The world was suddenly LOUD and I thought this meant I understood what I was hearing,” Dunham wrote.
“If you had told me back then that I would be writing for the next seven-plus years, I would have probably ripped up my contract and dumped my laptop in the bathtub,” she continued. “Writing was a pure act of immediacy for me in my twenties. I would have an experience and then put it through a fantasy filter, and six months later it would be on television.
Lena Dunham Says She Wrote to ‘Process” What Happened to Her
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She admitted that, in retrospect, she had not lived enough to be able to deal with what she was going through.
She continued, “I didn’t realize the value of time – to heal us, make sense of our past, and to change the patterns that we keep repeating in our art and work.” “The gift that this book has given to me over the past seven years is that it was always available. No matter what changed – my location, my body or my mind – there was always this constant: a place I could go to make sense of the story.
She wrote: “When we finally decided on a publication date, I felt like I was grieving.” “One of my closest companions was departing. But it’s the right time.”
The Lena Dunham Reveals Her ‘Sobbing’ over Her Memoir’s Release first appeared on The Blast
