Lena Dunham Recalls Pain Points in Relationship With Ex Jack Antonoff in New Memoir

A years-old love story is suddenly back in the spotlight. Lena Dunham's candid new memoir is giving fans an unfiltered look at what really happened behind closed doors with her ex.

Lena Dunham is baring her soul in her new memoir "Famesick." The writer and director released the book earlier this year in April, and it's now generating fresh buzz following news of Margaret Qualley's split from her husband, Jack Antonoff.

Dunham and Antonoff were an item from 2012 to late 2017. In the memoir, she reflects on the difficult moments in their relationship, tracing much of the strain back to her diagnosis with endometriosis.

The two were first introduced through Antonoff's sister, Rachel. Dunham was trying on dresses in Rachel's office ahead of an upcoming premiere when Rachel suggested she meet her brother. "'He's the funniest, weirdest, coziest person alive,'" Dunham recalled the designer saying.

"Cozy, I told her, was my favorite word," she continued. "'He's in a band, and he meets all the wrong kinds of girls —they all want to be models, or scenesters. But he's just a sweet boy who loves to be cozy.'"

Sparks flew soon after, and the pair began dating. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Dunham received her diagnosis at age 26 — a turning point that would test the relationship going forward.

Over the following decade, she underwent numerous laparoscopic excision procedures and other conservative treatments in an effort to manage her severe endometriosis, before ultimately opting for a total hysterectomy in 2017.

Dunham shared that Antonoff apologized to her following her very first excision surgery. "He bent over me then — my puffy blue surgical cap still on, foggy from propofol, swaddled in heated blankets — and he wept. Long, heaving sobs," she wrote.

At the time, she interpreted his tears as an unspoken apology, one she took to mean regret for not having taken her condition more seriously sooner.

"The doctor's words had alerted him to the irrefutable truth of my pain, and he couldn't bear having ignored it. But what I hear now, ten years later, is: 'I'm so sorry you have to live with this. And I'm so sorry that I can't,'" she said.

Still, the apology didn't translate into lasting change. Later in the memoir, Dunham revealed that Antonoff allegedly flushed her pain medication down the toilet in the aftermath of what she described as the "worst fight" of their relationship.

The blowup stemmed from a conversation about her growing dependence on pain medication following her then-recent hysterectomy.

According to Dunham, Antonoff's reaction was to storm into the bathroom and angrily flush all her pills down the toilet, which necessitated a call to the doctor and a late-night trip to the pharmacy to get more so that she wouldn't go into withdrawal — from any one of the drugs — overnight.

Eventually, Dunham came to accept that after nearly six years together, the relationship had run its course. The couple officially parted ways in December 2017.

"'No matter what happens,' I said, 'you will always be my first great love,'" Dunham recalled telling Antonoff during their breakup. "'And you'll be mine,' he wept. In the relief, he looked so young and silly, so wise and present, so exactly as I'd found him."

Dunham went on to marry musician Luis Felber in 2021, while Antonoff found love again with Qualley, whom he wed in 2023.