Lena Dunham has addressed the “gnarly” comments she’s received on social media just a week after her wedding photos went viral.
The Girls star and creator got married to musician Luis Felber on 25 September in London, and photos from her big day were published in a Vogue spread.
In a lengthy Instagram post shared on Wednesday, Lena explained that after taking some much-needed time off and enjoying her new marriage, she decided to take “a peek” at some commentary about her online “and saw some gnarly shit”.
Lena said she shrugged off most of it, but there was “one narrative” that she is taking issue with — “that I should somehow be ashamed because my body has changed since I was last on television”.
The actor and writer – whose body has been scrutinised for the entirety of her career – expressed how frustrating this new wave of shaming feels to her.
“It’s ironic to have my body compared to a body that was also the subject of public scorn,” Lena wrote, saying it felt like “an echo chamber of body shaming”.
Lena went on to shatter people’s assumptions as to why her appearance has changed.
“When will we learn to stop equating thinness with health/happiness?” she wrote. “Of course weight loss can be the result of positive change in habits, but guess what? So can weight gain.”
She added: “The pics I’m being compared to are from when I was in active addiction with undiagnosed illness.”
David M. Benett via Getty Images
Lena told Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert in October 2018 that after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and having a hysterectomy, she began to misuse pills as a way to cope with anxiety.
She revealed to Shepard that her “particular passion was Klonopin” and that she took the drug for three years. She also said at the time of her interview that she had been sober for six months.
Lena also disclosed that she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in 2019 after paparazzi published photos of her walking with a cane.
The chronic condition affects “connective tissues supporting the skin, bones, blood vessels, and many other organs and tissues,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
She said in her Instagram post on Wednesday that since she’s gotten sober she’s been living her life “as someone who aspires toward health and not just achievement”.
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She said these changes allowed her to be the kind of person she wants to be, which led her to meeting her husband, who she says “doesn’t recognise me in those old photos because he sees how dimmed my light was.”
Lena said her words in her post were aimed toward anyone whose body has changed over time due to “illness or circumstance.”
“It’s okay to live in your present body without treating it as transitional,” she concluded. “I am, and I’m really enjoying it.”
