Everything Is Content - Lena Dunham: A Voice of a Generation?

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Hello EICupcakes,Moustache fingers up because we're diving into one hell of a millennial memoir this week. Lena Dunham is back into the zeitgeist with Famesick, her second memoir detailing her unique experience of fame and chronic illness during her 20s and 30s. We dive into the the lore, the controversies and the legend of Lena, including our wonderful experience at Intelligence Squared's event with her in convo with Monica Heisey and Dolly Alderton.A reminder we're chatting to the incredible Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear, next week so get your questions IN for this one.We are an ambitious independent podcast and would love if you could give us a review on Apple/Spotify, as it helps push us to other people and keep us going <3 love O,R,B xxx------This week, Oenone has been watching Euphoria episode 2 and reading Yesteryear. Beth has been enthralled by the reception to Losing My Friend Over Wegovy, while Ruchira has been intrigued by Zoe Kravitz' suspected engagement ring.Lena Dunham has apologised for disbelieving a rape allegation – and made matters worseLena Dunham: My Apology to Aurora"Life Is Just So" w/ Lena Dunham (Las Cultaristas)The Interview (Lena Dunham) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Richara. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, the podcasting voice of our generation, or at least a generation. Twice a week we cover everything from viral stories, politics, celebrity drama, books, TV and the rest.

We're your devoted pop culture parents and we would never cut you off from the discourse. This week on the podcast, we're talking about Lena Dunham, her sold-out event this weekend, that we were lucky enough to go to, her HBO show Girls, her many scandals, her new memoir FAMSIC, and everything content-worthy from inside it.

Follow us on Instagram at Everything is ContentPod, and make sure you hit follow on your podcast player app so you never, ever, ever, ever, ever miss an episode. And just a little reminder that we are an independent podcast and reviews make the world of difference for us. They help us get on the charts and keep us going and grabbing. So if you have rated and reviewed already, we love you for that. Thank you. If not, we still love you, but we would be very grateful if you would take a second to 10 seconds and leave us, maybe five stars or even some nice words about the podcast.

Before I ask you both what you've been loving this week, flashback to what I was loving last week and also loving this week, which is yesterday year because we wanted to let you know that we will be chatting to the brilliant Caro Claire Burke next Wednesday about her book yesterday. So expect discourse about tradwives, women, social media, American domesticity, conservative propaganda. And if you have any questions you want us to ask or simply thoughts about the book that you'd like us to put to her, our DMs are wide open and we will remind you again beforehand on social media, but no need to wait for that if you don't want. Send us a message whenever. Okay, now over to you both. I'm going to pick on you, Beth. What have you been loving this week?

So I don't know if this is something I've been loving, but it's something I've been very locked into, which is discourse on the internet about, unsurprisingly, the most recent insane cut personal essay, which was called Losing My Friend Over Weigavi, which is by Sophia Ortega, and it's about two friends, one who isn't the author, one who hid her semi-glutide use from the other, e.gitie, the author of the piece, because she knew that she would spiral, and she did spiral, and they haven't spoken since. Did you two read this piece slash have you seen the chatter about it? Yes. Oh my gosh.

So I read the piece. Kind of felt conflicted and confused about what I thought. Did the darkest thing possible read the comments on the cut? And then I just felt scared to weigh in on it at all. What about you and only? Oh my God. Okay. Enlighten me.

So I read the piece. I had to sit with my thoughts because I personally felt conflicted, but I had not run to the comments. So I would like you to tell me what is the tone and what's the general gist thrust of what's happening over the piece. there. So on the cuts actual comments, I haven't gone even to social media the dark depths of there, but people are really fucked off with the author. They think that she is self-obsessed and she is inconsiderate to her friend. And also the main thing, I think a lot of accusations

of she is clearly not well enough to be writing the piece because it seems like her eating disorder is very much front and center of her life and dictating her decisions. These are the comments, by the way, this is not why I'm saying. So I think a lot of anti-author, have you seen anything on socials, Beth? Well, it's very similar, but I do think there are enough people saying other ways. So very quickly for anyone who hasn't read this piece and it's like, oh God, what have they done now? It is, as Ritia says, it is the author is in eating disorder recovery after, I think it was anorexia, other disordered eating habits that did lead her to a very, very unwell place. And so she writes that she has had to as a result, like self-exclude from a lot of the things that other ways.

women, just in society, a lot of what we are doing, which is calorie counting, having food rules, weighing yourselves, obviously also taking or engaging with GLP-1s. And so she writes when she finds the Weigavi, wegovi, whatever it's called, in her close friends fridge. I say, wouldgovi. I say, wouldgovy sound slightly better. It's just not the one that I go to. I'm the one that I don't take it, but you know what I mean. I said it out loud. I always just call everything as epic, which I know it's not right. I think when we start, we used to call it like GPL once. We've come so far. Anyway. So she finds this GPL one in her close friend's fridge.

And then she is really triggered and they have this sit down conversation when the friend goes. Like, I really, you're the one person I didn't want to find out about this. The riser feels really angry. She feels like she had been lied to. And she's thinking back to times when her friend had cancelled plans for reasons of nausea, vomiting, not feeling very well. And how she comforted her and said, oh, I'm, you know, I hope you feel better. And then she's going back and going, was that a side effect? Was I comforting you while you were taking this weight loss medication?

and in the end, they just, the friendship fizzles out. And we will link the piece. I think it's really interesting, but it is, yeah, the conversations that I'm watching are people going, has a responsibility to his writers, to one, not named them, because she is named, she has her byline, which I'm sure she does want. I think she's trying to write a memoir. But it just seemed really, she doesn't seem that well. And the comments are giving her quite a lot of flack for, I think the argument is we all have to engage

with other people's decisions constantly, people in. people recovering from addiction do. They have to, you know, in an ideal world, they'll be friends with people who drink, but everyone will be respectful of each other. Why isn't this different? Other people on the other side are saying, you don't know how serious eating disorders are

that, you know, this really could have killed her at some point in her life. She has taken care of herself. The main thread is the cut needs to be put in prison now. So, yeah, my initial gut reaction, honestly, was probably closer to the comments being like, oh, God, like, I don't think she can say this. And then I really thought about it.

And I was that, actually, this is weird because for our whole lives we were told there is no magic pill to make you lose weight. And all of us in this podcast have talked about are varying degrees of struggling with, like, disorder eating. And overcoming disorder eating is making peace with the fact that you maybe don't have as much control over what you want your body to look like as you thought you did. And it's such a tangled web and it's so emotional and psychological and layered. And so like the recovery process, a lot of that includes kind of just letting go of this idea

that you'll ever be able to achieve this body. So I do understand in the context of it being such a new thing when that is the end point you've got to, which is I can't control this. I have to just live my life. The consequences of how that impacts the way that my body looks is kind of none of my business. For then someone to invent this thing that's fixed the thing

that you've been told that you cannot fix. It's not fixable without all of this life-threatening choices that she was making. You know, she was doing extreme lancet's trying these weight. Yes, it feels extreme her reaction. But we have to, I think, give her a bit of grace and the fact that this is very new and it's something that our whole lives we were told

would never exist. And I think because it's been so named in the culture, because it is everywhere, we talk about it all the time, maybe we have forgotten, like the fact that we just think this is normal now, we're like, oh, someone's on a Zen pic. It's actually wild that this exists.

So I think that actually sometimes just sitting with something for a bit and being like, to me it did feel a bit extreme and I felt very sad that she had to end her friendship. At the same time, you know, if she has to do that to protect herself and the friend, you know everyone's got different boundaries but I did think that maybe it's an interesting point to think about just the fact that it still is so new yeah and I do get what you're saying with the grace thing as well and that's kind of what I was feeling where I just felt like really sad

for the person and I really felt sad for the friend and I think that was what was difficult about the piece I didn't agree with everything but I also just felt ultimately very distressed for this person who was obviously really struggling and the main thing I thought was I wish she just had a conversation with her friend. It really felt like the walls went up. But also, I do really understand that as well, because if you're not, like, I struggled in my disorder eating at 15. I've had, you know, a lifetime between then and now to almost grow into a different person. It feels like I've had enough space from it that I have had friends struggling with eating later on in life. And it hasn't triggered me. I've in my mind been able to be there for them. But that's not everyone.

So it's really difficult and naughty. And I don't feel like I could land on either side or, you know, defend somebody or accuse somebody of something because it's just really messy. That's what I just felt by it. What did you think, Beth? I think that it is too flattening a thing to say that anyone who takes a GLP1 has, quite unquote, like given into diet culture or is kind of lost forever. And if you suffer with any disorder eating, you will be dragged down and they're kind of a lost cause.

I think there's some people do take them for weight loss. Some people do take them and they shouldn't take them. We talked about a, like reality of TV stars who have gone into. to treatment recovery because they were, they accessed them at already a very low weight. But other people do take them for eating disorder recovery, for food noise, for joint pain, for an associated illness. They are really expensive. You kind of have to stay on them forever. I think the benefit of the conversation would be kind of fully understanding and maybe it would have assuaged some of her fears. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would have been,

you're doing the thing that if my brain gets its way, I will do as well and I'll probably die. So what it just, it just felt a little bit, yeah, sad and maybe just like an unformed piece. I know the cut does put out these pieces and this is kind of the draw. Someone on Twitter actually called it, they said the cut personal essay is kind of like TLC reality TV shows for middle class women. And it is. It is. Sometimes it is not something of substance. And I think when I see that kind of the cut, I go, oh, there'll be something juicy, but ultimately I kind of equate it with these really good personal essays and of which there have been many. But often you go, this is a hot mess. They are rubbing their hands together with glee because they will.

get the clicks, but actually who is this for? What's the point? It's like, you know, on pirate ships where people walk onto the plank, it does almost feel like every writer who writes for the cut, personal essay is almost doing that and diving into the abyss of like hate online. I think about that person who married for money or married, it was, you know, pitched as age gap, but it's really just marrying somebody rich. What's happened to them? I hope they're okay. Yeah, they have such form for getting people when they're very vulnerable. And a thing, I've sure I've shared this before, but the thing that I've learned in my work is share from the wound, not from the scar.

So I never talk about anything like when I'm going through it. And they always seem to get people at the emotional apex of whatever they're experiencing, which is when you are talking in a way that actually when you calm down a bit, you think maybe I wouldn't have said it like that with a little bit of hindsight. There is no hindsight. They are in the thrust of whatever they're experiencing at the moment when it's really impacting them. And the cut, I don't know how they find them or if they like seek out these people. But is it a lack of duty of care?

Is it on the right to, you know, know what their boundaries are around their work. I don't know, but I will read every single one. What have you been loving, Ruchera? So mine is probably not what I've been loving, but it's what I've been interested in, which is this cut story again of Zoe Kravitz being spotted with a ring on her left finger. And I'm sorry to be as regressive in bringing this to the table. But I am interested. If her and Harry's styles are engaged, that's fucking interesting. Have you seen this? Mm-hmm. And she always wears jewelry from the story design that I'm obsessed with and pretend in my mind

that I will one day have one of her nexus, which costs like £30,000. And I think Channing, because was she engaged to Channing Tatum? Yeah. I think he proposed to her with a ring from Jessica McCormack, who is this designer and everyone's like, oh my God, imagine if it's another Jessica McCormick, Ray. It's just like the same ring. So funny. No, I am obsessed.

I would be fascinated. I don't, it shocked me. I don't think it'll last if it's real. Ooh. Why do you think this? Let's put our therapist, relationship therapist, Esther Perel hats on. simply through sort of vibe. I just, okay.

I don't really, it's just an instinct I feel, which probably means I feel like with something like that and means actually they're going to go on forever. I also think just the idea of Harry Styles getting married feels so unimaginable to me. And I think it's because he's always been a serial dating the hottest person on this earth vibe of guy. Maybe that's part of your vibes piece.

They both are, aren't they? That's kind of both of their vibes. What do they say about her? she's collecting gorgeous men like, what those rings? Infinity Stones. I've not seen Marvel films, but I know what that means. So maybe they're each other's perfect equal, to be fair. I wonder if as well, actually, maybe it's because they have actually kept this relationship

quite under wraps, whereas like with the Olivia Wilde thing, that was splashed all over the papers, it was everywhere. There was the little Emily Ratkowski snog that was like nothing. Yeah, because this is the first time we've seen them kissing. But they have been walking around. I mean, I don't, I don't understand how that practically work. I see them trotting across. cross in very chic baseball hats across every major metropolitan city.

Well, across the globe. So I always wonder, like, have you been caught on a, but actually are both very well dressed? And I just feel that they want us to see. I love the way celebrities walk everywhere with baseball caps. And always that kind of, they look a mess. Gracie Abrams has a really good form for this as well. And Suki Waterhouse.

They kind of look a mess, but you know it's probably from the row, but it's like a really chic way of like they don't appear. They're almost kind of wearing pajamas. But it's very chic. I wish I walked on them better than my wedding dress would be. Jennifer Lawrence had some amazing pap photos lately and to the point where I'm like these must be staged surely because she's like walking down a catwalk. It's like the devil wears part of opening scene.

It's so good. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I do think you're right. It's probably literally the row where it's like 500 pounds for a vest top. And I feel like clothes like that, they look really basic, but they just hang in the most perfect way on the people with the most perfect body. So that's that's that. I mean they are to that hottest people on the planet.

obviously it would be just beautiful for them to be together in matrimony, holy matrimony. We, they have our blessing then. Go on. Give them your blessing. We've got fine. You can get married, guys. And our final guest, what have you been loving this week? Well, so I finished FAMSick just in time. Well, actually, no, I finished it before what we're about to talk about. But yes, finish FAMSick. I've almost finished yesterday, yeah. So, sorry, I'm bringing up all the things we're talking about. Then last night, I don't know why, but I watched episode two of Euphoria. Did you, have you guys watched it?

I watched it, yeah. Me too, me too. That's good revisit. What did you think? Oh my God. Well, I was like half watching it, half working. And every time I looked up, it was just a pair of tits. And I was like, what is happening in this show?

And I just, I actually found it quite right. Like, I was finding it quite distressing. I have to be honest. Ah, yeah. There was a lot of, there was a lot of boob, a lot of tittle. I thought it was fine. This one didn't offend me as much as the first one. I just kind of thought it felt like a lot of disparate things,

a lot of filler. I was glad that Hunter Schaefer's character, Jules, is back. I'm intrigued about that. That's probably like the only bit where I'm actively like, what the hell is going on with her right now? What do you think, Beth? Well, a lot of people were saying, and I agree with this, that the character of Angel,

who I think is actually a one and done, played Priscilla Zalgardo, was a standout performance. It's this kind of arc with Rue about this dancer at the club that she's now working at, who, you know, she, her friend has died. We know this, but she's searching for her friend. She is mixed up in drugs.

And, you know, it's the arc of her. She has a relationship with Rue. And this performance is just brilliant. She's a fantastic actress and people are going finally, something to get our teeth into. And then she seems to have vanished and we may not see her again the season. It does feel like Sam Levinson is given these gifts and then squanders them. Because now, as people are pointing out, we have to now watch Cassie and Nate for the rest of the season. But we'll never see this shining star again.

So it is, there were glimmers of watchability. And someone in our Spotify comments was like, please, can you guys watch it? So I don't have to. I think we will take on that responsibility, but it's going to be a hard to ask. It is quite good. I am enjoying the costuming. I'm loving Maddie's outfits. And there's people that are finding out that she's wearing, like vintage couture and they're sourcing everything that she's wearing.

There's some good costuming. And you're right. She was a great additional character. But if you just zoom out, I just thought again, it's just fetishization and just degradation. And I don't, can't really hard to put an actual dations story out of that. Give me a second. I'm working on a theory about what he's trying to say. I think his big thesis is there are.

two types of people in this world. You're either a pimp or you're ho. And I think that's what he's genuinely saying. Because literally, Rue's trying to be the first. Every other woman is the second. Maddie is the first. I think generally that's his thesis for this. Let's see how it goes. It's sex and power. Unless he's actually really woke and he's being like, well, I suppose it depends what side of the argument you land on. But it's like women are being forced into sex work and it's really degrading drugs are bad. Maybe that's this full message. It's like, don't your drug stay home and, you know, look after yourselves. Yeah. That's our message. anyway.

So we had a really very lovely podcast date on Sunday because the three of us were really kindly invited to see writer, actress and director Lena Dunham in conversation with Monica Heisey at The Hack the Empire. Lena Dunham is of course the creator and star of the huge HBO TV hit girls, which is a satirical comedy about young women in New York and it aired for six seasons from 2012 to 2017 and won two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA, golden glow. as well as a host of other awards over its whole run. And it catapulted both Lena and the other girls of girls

to huge levels of visibility and fame, but also in Lena's case, to massive scrutiny for reasons which we will get into across this episode. Her first memoir, not that kind of girl, came out in 2014 and she has now released her second FAMSIC for which she is currently on the press store. And the event which was about FAMSIC and the interview, it was actually very iconic.

I'm sure that a lot of you will have seen the stage set up on socials, but if not, it's this kind of bedroom set, a big cozy bed, an armchair, bedside tables, lamps, she comes out at the beginning, sits down on the armchair, chats to the audience, does a bit of reading, then she kicks off her shoes and she climbs into bed, after which she is joined by whoever her interview is. In the past, I think it's been, Andrew Reynolds from the show, Emerita, I forget the others, but she's had some very big names. In our case, it was Monica Heise, who, again, I'm sure you know, Canadian writer and author. She wrote the novel, Really Good Actually, which I loved.

I think we did maybe all love on this spot, or at least we all read. We know at least one of you was there on Saturday, Hackney Empire, because we met you outside, and that was so nice. And I was saying to Ritchero while we waited for you and only, I can feel the E.I. Cherubs around us. So, I mean, we'll share our thoughts by the event. But if you were there for either the matinee, where we were, or the evening show with Dolly Alton, where I also was,

because I'm obviously a huge stand, let us know in the Spotify comments what you thought. And I just am so desperate because we have been trying to be limited about what we discussed. What did you get from it? What were you expecting when you walked into the event and the interview? And did it end up matching your expectations? The minute I saw that this was announced, initially they hadn't announced, I don't think the matinee.

I was like, we have to go to this. And then we found out that we had tickets to the matinee with Monarchaisi. You got so excited. And then I kind of was like, hmm, what is going to happen? because sometimes conversations around books. And me and Beth had already read the book. So we were like, we're kind of screwed if the whole conversation is just about the book.

I think Richard just started it. And actually, it was so much more. And she's like a stand-up comedian. She's got funny bones. Like, she was just absolutely hilarious. I was entertained throughout. We were all laughing so much. And there was that beautiful montage at the beginning,

which literally looked like they'd just taken her iPhone camera roll from like the beginning of girls up until today. and we're just sharing the most amazing candid pictures of her with every celebrity you could possibly imagine. It was raucous. It was amazing. I felt like incredibly inspired by her. And it was a really fun event.

Sometimes those talks, you can be sitting there and be thinking, oh, okay, got a bit longer left. But they made audience interaction. There was like, it was a hoop. Did you like it there? I think you did because you went twice. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed it.

And I was thinking, what were my expectations? I probably did think I thought, okay, maybe it will be sort of book clubbing, maybe we'll be quite serious. I've seen a few of her interviews around this. So I was so many things to talk about. It was really funny. I didn't, I don't think I've ever watched an interview with her prior to last week. I don't think I've heard her on a podcast. I've read her probably quite extensively and I've watched her output. So I didn't expect her to be as funny, as really like off the cuff funny, but also like what she'd clearly written for the for the intro, which she did,

so I obviously went to both shows and she did similar bits, but different takes on them. different bits and you know she lost her place in the book and she was riffing on that and she is genuinely very very quick and funny and I I knew she was a hilarious writer I just didn't know this about her and so that when I realized that was happening I was like oh we will be enjoying this but yeah it was just it was great fun it was one of the best sort of live in conversation events that I've been to and I've been to quite a few Ruchera take it away uh struggling to come up with a different take like I hated it no I didn't at all one thing I noticed and I think we both spoke about this and only is. Because we were sat second row from the front, it looked like

she was staring into our souls at various points. And I could feel myself getting really jittery because I felt like we were just on stage together, me and her talking. But it was amazing. And for a fan of her, it felt like not to be really lame. But it literally did feel like this like really special thing to be a part of. And I just feel so grateful that we got to go because it just made me feel so nostalgic and thinking about all the times that I've been through breakups, through friendship problems when I've like done something to mess up my life and I have to like come back crawling to the people I've hurt and just watching girls on the sides and not feeling so alone during those like sticky parts of your 20s. And then just to see somebody who's come out of

that era with so many just like, you know, battle wounds from it. But just to be so funny, so quick, so well adjusted, it seems. And just have such humor about it all. I don't know. It just felt like weirdly emotional and I think I can't really coherently put it together but it feels like seeing somebody who feels emblematic of a time that we went through on stage and just like being confronted with it. It just felt like some weird like nostalgic moment all coalescing together. Sorry to be so honest. No, I completely agree. And also I think it's interesting, Beth, that you said you'd never listen to her. Did neither of you listen to Lenny Latter, her podcast? I didn't, but I forgot to say I did listen to her on the interview and last culture Easter from last

week before this. So I had the exact same expectations as you guys and she said everything, but what she said on those podcasts. But now I never listened to Lenny Letter. So it's so funny, because I did used to listen to that, me being the little podcast slut that I am. I listened to, I think I used to listen to it all the time, but I don't remember finding that funny, which is really interesting. It was called Lenny Letter, wasn't it? Because I can't have. Oh, so maybe it was Woman of the Hour. I think I, yeah, it was Women of the Hour and I used to listen to, yeah, I think I listened to every single one. But yeah, whether or not it was just, at the time I didn't get a humour, but I just couldn't go over how funny she was.

And I loved her interview on Las Culturistas. And one of the things she said that I thought was really interesting was that it took her eight months to write her first memoir and it took her eight years to write this book. And I think being sat there in that room is so interesting because she has weathered, as we will talk about, so many storms, some very valid and others, perhaps not so much. And she's such a fascinating character within the cultural conversation because she kind of is the culture and the culture is her. and some people would have faded so quickly.

And it's kind of like the fact that she's having this boom and she's come back and she's kind of bigger than ever and people, those days were selling out and those tickets were not cheap. And like this tour has been packed. I think she's a really interesting case study and I'm kind of fascinated to see where she'll go now because there is a world in which girls happened and then nothing else ever happened ever again. I think it is, what you love her, a hater is a success story, especially against this backdrop of celebrity culture. She is about to turn 40. She has had a litany of controversies. As we say, we will get into those. She has rebuffed and resisted a lot of Hollywood beauty standards.

She has not got a facelift. She has not got slimmer. She has got more brash and open. She has sort of turned away from celebrity, like left Hollywood, New York and come to the UK. So the fact that she is on this pinnacle, And I think this book is bestseller already. We will double check that. It feels like a success story of a kind that we aren't seeing so much of because she is very much

the 2010s feminist. It's so out of vogue to be that way. And yet she has persevered. And I think her candor and her humor, maybe it was, was it, I forget which one is which because in the day I was too, I was so excited to be there at the matinee. In the evening, I had three glasses of pink rosé wine. So I can't remember which one this was that. But when she talked about how she was writing really earnestly and talking really honestly,

and then it sort of pointed out like, this stuff can be funny. It doesn't take away from how much it hurt to make a thing funny. Actually, it's a really good way of communicating after the fact how something felt. You can make it funny. You can make it real. So I really like this year's doing this and laughing and doing this joyfully, pulling no punches in what she's saying. But it just feels like maybe a good omen in a sea of a Zemic facelift. Everyone's tiny.

everyone's going, you know, on woke. Something about it, I thought, oh, this is a bit of a beacon. I just keep thinking about the fact that we spoke about Lindy West, having a memoir really recently. And you could say that they're from a similar era, a similar school of time and culture, and why one of them seems to be the most celebrated books in a while

and everyone is really cheering. And then the other one seems to have just caused this massive discourse spiral. And people are just saying it's so not self-aware. The writer has missed the boat. And I wonder what's going on there. I kind of just feel like the culture maybe has caught up to Alina Dunham a bit where this, and she said it herself.

She said that, you know, now we're main characters, we're all the villain of our story. We're all the Hannah Horvaths just like kind of ricocheting through life. Whereas back then that was seen as self-obsessed, neurotic, narcissistic. I can't remember which podcast she said this in or whether it's the talk we went to. I'm the same as you now. I've consumed so much Lena content. But I wonder if it's something about that, whereas the lack of self-consciousness, I feel like she's now embracing with just being her authentic self-being, people respond to that way better. Whereas perhaps with the Lindy West and that memoir, there was a self-consciousness of still trying to have people be on her side that people really resisted and didn't like.

So I've seen a lot of takes on Twitter, which I was trying to find, but now can't, about comparing these two and like why one worked and one didn't, because a lot of people saying like everyone spoke about Lindy West's memoir, but it didn't translate in the same way to say, sales and like every single bookshop across the well like in the UK in America people are like my bookshop doesn't have fam sick my library it's rented out and everyone's like okay so maybe she is the voice of a generation and someone else tweeted only a mastermind like Lena Dunham's could have us live tweeting a book and literally everyone has just been talking about it and what I could not come away from in watching her was how indicted I was to her how much I liked her how much I wanted to be her friend and I think when we experienced girls the first time and you experience the around her. I wouldn't necessarily have felt that way. I always thought she was kind of like a genius and

incredible writer, but I wasn't ready for how compelled I felt towards her. And it is that thing you said of Beth, if she's able to take these awful incidents, like she talks about the time in the book when she got burnt and she read it out right at the top. And everyone was just pissing themselves laughing. It was like a horrific thing that happened. She manages to make it so, so funny. And also lots of people to tweet about this, but there's so many instances of like ridiculous privilege, like the people she grows up around and the connections that she has. And for some reason, the way she says it or the way she talks about it, it doesn't put your back up. And that's quite an interesting thing in this current climate, because maybe it is just, she is just a truth teller. She's always speaking from her perspective

in a way that you know that she's not trying to get around you or hide anything from you. She's saying exactly what she thinks and the way that she perceives it in a way that you're able to see it through her eyes. So you don't feel like she's trying to trick you. I don't know. She's just, she's one of a kind, I think. I think it really reminds me what you said ages ago about Charlie X-E-X's substike essay, which is she always feels on our side, regardless of what scenario she's in, even when she's bloody at dinner with Bruce Springsteen, she always feels like she's an outsider in those spaces because she writes from the outsider perspective. Sometimes, like, it never seems like she's normalising any of it. She's just always still like, how wild,

how wild, how crazy, like what a weird scenario to be in. And I think that is really endearing, even in those spaces because it makes you feel like you're kind of in those spaces. It's kind of like living it vicariously through her rather than it being one of those like Hollywood tellal memoirs where they're just like completely deadpan talking about these crazy things. I never felt that in this wild book of wild experiences with the most A-less people of all time. It's so tempting to now because I know that we want to have a little pause and kind of go back in time to like Lena's history and our relationship with her other output. But on the Lindy West thing, I think, I think Lindy's book and the surrounding chat,

it felt like a pure exercise. It felt like a justification for a way of living that people are still not caught up to. It centered around a husband and a partner that people do feel a little bit unsavourily, unsavorily towards. Whereas in Lena's book, one people do have that relationship with her. I think she was the lead on the TV show, the tender, flawed face. of girls that we all got to know over that seven-year period. We feel that we know her, we have that relationship with her. And also it's not, it's a love story and it's a happy ending story, but most of it is about the failing of a relationship. And I think those key differences, as well as I would say, they're both fantastic writers, but Lena is just in a class of her own.

That is why I do think people are responding differently. I mean, she's Lena freaking done him. So as we say, the crowd on Sunday was electric. People were so happy to be there. And so engaged with Lina, and we've said it and we'll say it again, she was delightful and we were absolutely beyond delighted, which feels kind of worlds away from some of the stuff she describes in the book, which is basically her entire career being blighted. And at times it seemed defined by tabloid cruelty, internet trolling, as well as a lot of more considered critique, think pieces, comments on her body, her writing, the characters of her show, her personal life, I mean her face and her public missteps and mistakes too. And she writes about all of this in FAMSick,

which we will dive into properly shortly. But first it seems necessary to go back and look at those controversies because she really was this lightning rod of the 2010s. And even her Wikipedia page is stacked with controversies. So one of the ones that I feel like is still attached to her this day. And she talks about it in the book is the claims of molestation, which came from her first book. So it was another controversy which refused and still refuses to die really. And this refers to a part of Lena's first memoir where she describes a curiosity with her sibling and with their respective genitals, having a look at her siblings and finding that there were some pebbles in it and getting alarmed and calling for their mother.

So the kind of thrust of the story is that the younger sibling had put some stones in there. This along with other details, including wanting to do her siblings' makeup and using sweets as a bribe for five second kisses when they were both children, just went viral, absolutely viral. And it feels like important to say that Lena's sibling does not feel that this was a sexually forceful or abusive thing that happened. But despite all of that, the internet framed it like that, to the point that in the book,

she talks about watching broadcast news of herself being discussed again and again and again, and her parents being accused of being abusive parents who let their children get away with this. I mean, this still is brought up to this day, and it's something that she, I mean, it's a great part of the book where she sort of goes like, this was suddenly the story. There was nothing that we could do about it. It was, I have molested my sibling. There's a great piece of the Atlantic called What Does Lena Dunham want to tell us by Sophie Gilbert. And she writes, most cruelly right-wingers, she's talking about the controversies, most cruelly right-wing writers who seized on confessions Dunham had made about a curiosity regarding her baby sibling to argue in the worst possible that she was a child molester. And when I see people now seize on this and repeat it verbatim, even getting the facts wrong and saying, oh, she put stones in a child's vagina. And that didn't happen. It does make me think there is an element of people being so ready to believe the very worst and get and not even dispense with the facts so that they can skewer her with not just

allegations of like you were a kind of white self-obsessed writer, you did this and this, but like you are actually a predator. You should be in jail. And that. I don't think I could have as a writer and a human being probably got through and then been like, I'm going to write more. I'm going to write another memoir. It's really insane. I could never, ever have got through this because also when this happened, I received the mistranslation of, oh my God, Lena Dunham sexually assaulted her sibling and she put stones in their vagina. And so for ages, I just was like, I literally couldn't. It made feel so sick that I almost just couldn't engage. And then you read more of the details. Like, first of all, they're very young. Even if she

had done that. If you speak to any parent, you'll be like, oh, my God, the kids are like, God knows what they're doing in the garden. They're always, they don't know what they're doing in the butt. Like they're kind of, you're figuring it out and discovering your body. But what this made me think about, funnily enough, was the quote that she read out at the beginning of fame, sick, which is about this dinner that she has, where she ends up sitting opposite Bruce Springsteen and she kind of verbal diaries, this confession to him because he has a friendship with Jack Antonoff and she's like, Bruce, I just want you to know, no, blah, blah, blah, because she'd met him before. And what Bruce Springsteen says to her is that you just need to know that basically like,

you don't need to tell everyone everything. You just have to be honest about who you are and show them who you are through your writing. You don't literally need to say everything. And this is such a good example of why the fuck was that in the book? Because it is nobody needed to know this. And there are always stories of children doing odd things and discovering themselves, discovering their bodies, discovering their sibling. And it is uncomfortable to talk about because we don't really know what to do with it.

And we live in a really prudish weird society where we as being sexualized. And that actually kind of further reinforces rape culture and sexualization of children. Whereas if we would be able to be up in the open more about like, this is just your body. Sometimes it has sexual functions. Other times it's this, whatever. We'd be a much healthier society. But that is not the world that we live in. This absolutely is going to hang over her head forever.

I don't know why her editor thought that it was a safe thing to go in this book. And if I had been on the receiving end of that, I find it hard. Someone once wrote online that I was rude to a waitress in a restaurant and I hadn't been. And that stays with me because I would never be rude to her waitress. Anyway, that has stayed with me four years and years and years. if this came out about me, I would go into a hole and I would never be able to climb out. And that is why I think she's so, so fascinating. Well, one thing I'll say is if it's written on the internet about you and only is obviously

true. So you have to cop it and I'm joking. We're the ones that wrote it. Just kidding. Yeah, I did actually do that last night. Sorry about it. Obviously not. Yeah, she talks about this in the book and I think it's such a fascinating insight because I don't really know much about her parents. I obviously knew that they were super wealthy. But I think her saying as a child, or maybe a teenager, they took her to these really expressive art installations where people were just jerking off and that was the environment she grew up in. Self-expression in art at any level is acceptable and should be encouraged.

I think helps contextualize who she is as a person. I think that did really help me add in the kind of layers to who she was and why you would think that this is a completely normal thing to talk about. But yeah, wild situation. Also now us having more understanding. of how the right wing media seizes on these moral panics for their own gain, I think helps me contextualize that topic because at the time I didn't really know enough about that. So I also fell for the leaner misinformation, just to cop to it, to be honest. Also, she's like their worst nightmare because she was, I mean, she wasn't really fat at the beginning of girls, but everyone loved to say that she was fat. She was a fat, tattooed woman

with liberal ideas about sex, who wasn't afraid of showing her tits, who was talking about drugs and anal and whatever else she was loose, she was like the poster girl of the opposite of what they wanted their women to be. So obviously something like this just ties in and it really reminds me of all of the kind of transphobic rhetoric where people just want to paint anyone that they perceive to be different or straying from what they see

as like the ideal as some kind of predatory, scary monster. And it's just invariably untrue. And I do wonder, I mean, I'm seeing on the timeline now people are posting clips from girls And in particular a scene where Mimi Rose, who is an artist and a partner, a lace partner of Adam Driver's character, talks about getting abortion. And she talks about in a really sort of laissez-faire way of like, well, this happened, so I can't do this. Very matter of fact, didn't want the baby. And people are posting that clip from right-wing accounts.

And loads of people being like, I've seen this. I almost liked this because it's such a good scene. I didn't realize it was from a right-wing account basically slamming it many years late, just not with the program at all. And I do wonder the environment where she wrote this show, being all of those things, as you say, I know, and also being a really young. woman, like given the helm of this whole show, like, just wouldn't happen now. The content wouldn't happen. People go, can't do that. We'll have discourse about it forever. There was discourse, but it just wasn't, you know, there was no podcaster talking about these things. It was just fans and other feminists, people having discussions around it quite politely and just do you like it, do not like it?

It was not now, President Trump would probably weigh in and have, you know, her put in prison. It's such a different place. And as much as I do think you have to be guided by what the world is doing and protect yourself and not write these things if, you know, or just, and, you know, or just, anticipate the backlash, it feels like a real shame that we don't have, not all adults and we can't receive these things and get, gain context and have a conversation, go, oh, what is normal between children? But what, you know, there's, there is child on child sexual abuse and we need to be aware of this, but this doesn't qualify, this does. This is what we need to know. The fact that we all just flap our hands and go like, that is dreadful, put this, you know,

burn this woman at the stake. It really feels, I hate living in this world, particularly, because we will lose. People will just not say these things and we will lose and lose. keep seeing these right-wing accounts and what they're saying is they're going, so because in the scene you're talking about Adam Driver's character is basically really upset with the decision about the abortion. These right-wing accounts are going, Lena Dunham is showing the truth around abortion. This is what she actually thinks. And I was the same as you. I was reading it because it was really praising. They were like, Lena Dunham is honest beyond anyone else. And I was like, oh, this is nice, reading, really, really. And I was like, what, how has this got twisted in this way? This is so fascinating.

And then on to the thing about, you know, at the time, it was different landscape than now. One thing that she did say that I also thought was interesting on last culture Easter was she said it felt like there were more critics writing about the show than there were people watching it. So I think even at the time it was receiving a massive amount of heat. She was like it wasn't being watched that widely but boy was it being talked about. Yeah, that is really fascinating. I guess we also have to talk about the worst controversy and bring that up, which she does talk about in the book. And I think it is mostly the widely condemned statement she co-signed with her long time co-collaborator Jenny Kona in 2017, which expressed support for a former girls writer who had

been accused of raping a 17-year-old when he was 35. She, like I said, she does mention this in FAMSIC, although she redacts the details, so you either have to know what she's talking about or engage in your own research. So a part of the statement, the joint statement reads, while our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our inside of 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. The next day, Lena tweeted an apology that read, I never thought I would issue a statement publicly supporting someone accused of sexual assault, but 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 is absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement, and I am so sorry. She also went on to write for the Hollywood reporter and this was a year after the incident and she again said that she'd made a terrible mistake writing when someone I knew someone I had loved as a brother was accused I did something inexcusable I publicly spoke up in his defence there were a few acts I could ever regret more in this life I didn't have the insider information I claimed but rather blind faith in a story that kept slipping and changing and refield itself to mean nothing at all so I think we just had to bring this up because you can't talk about Lena Dunham controversies without bringing up this

biggest one. And I know it's a tricky subject, but it also felt important not to pretend that this person that we are really excited for to have this book come out, did something that we personally really struggle with and really disagree with on a human level. Yeah, it is. I mean, I was waiting for the part of the book when I was reading it. And I sort of knew that it would come because she has, since that first absolutely ill thought out nightmare of a statement that she co-signed, there have been, there was the first slight walk back, which I think was the day after, there was the first bit that you read this longer essay. There was an event that she put on where she went on stage with, I believe,

the girl's mother, the girl's mother did express forgiveness. And I think, you know, we'll put links to these things. A lot of people will know who are talking about, but it does seem this happened while a guy don't want to attach to this woman's name. I hope that's the right way to do this. It feels like she has walked the wall. in trying to apologize and make amends for this over the past almost 10 years. So I thought, well, it will be in the book and it is. And what she does do in the book is then provide additional

context, which was that she had just been released from the hospital and she writes that she was really heavily medicated. She had just had her hysterectomy, I believe, and has no memory of drafting this statement and says that it's still something she feels genuine shame about, which is, of course, in line with how bad and incongruent a thing that that felt like. And I do, when people say, I don't like Lena Dunham, and this is why, and they say this, when then they cite this because they are aware of what happened, I think, well, fair enough, this is not a thing that anyone needs to forgive you for. I personally do, I subscribe to this belief system of restorative justice, of centering a victim and of moving forward and moving

through, but that doesn't mean that anyone has to be forgiven. That there is context around this, I think is interesting, because I didn't know this. I don't think she'd put that anywhere else until now, at least not that I'd found her, that she was fresh out of the hospital and just, and kind of in this haze of pain medication. I don't know whether people are receiving that as justification or just important context. For me, it does feel like context, but doesn't really change what happened that these two women did say put their name to something which ended up being really misleading and really damaging. Yeah, it's fundamentally inexcusable. And it's so interesting because this keeps getting retweeted onto my timeline. But a few months before in the same year,

Lena tweeted, things women do lie about what they ate for lunch, things women don't lie about rape. And it did feel totally incongruous with her. And you're right. I don't know. It's difficult because we live in a culture where when anyone wants to provide context. And I don't think she was saying as an excuse. I think she really was laying bare, you know, the situation that she was in. And it's up to any one individual, whether they take that as reasoning that might make it more understandable or not. And as she said, she did take eight years to write this book. So I really think she thought about it. But I do think it was unfathomable because it was coming from a woman who was everything that this statement was not. So it's the problematic fave thing again because

every time this is brought up, I do kind of set up straight and think, I don't really know what to do this piece of information. I simply wish that it had never happened. And she does keep saying, you know, it is my biggest regret. It's the thing that I'll never live down. And it's just something that will, I guess, never go away. And there's not really, I don't think there's anything really to, you can't tie it up in a neat bow. It's really messy and it's kind of like just desperately sad across the board. Yeah. Yeah, exactly that.

The other controversy I guess I wanted to bring up as a brown woman was this era of girls and the accusation that her cast on girls was mostly white, which it absolutely is. And when people of colour were written in, it was done in this tokenistic or superficial or they are the punchline type of way. And I will say, despite watching girls for when I was mostly going through my early 20s, an amazing time had just moved to London, was brilliant. That was the thing that I really sharply felt watching it. And it's such an interesting one because since then I just feel very differently. I think at the time, and we might have spoken about this before,

I feel like there was very much this, the think piece era, the criticism about why isn't this show diverse enough? And I think now we've moved on to wanting more from our TV and our films that we want, you know, Barry Jenkins. We want these amazing autos who are not white to be creating the craft rather than for our white directors, producers, whatever, to be writing people of colour in a way that we disagree with. We want to be in the rooms and we want to be creating the art ourselves. If other people are doing that too, that's great because our world should be diverse, but Lena Denham is not the person that I'm needing that from anymore because

I'd rather be writing it myself and I'd rather be given the opportunity or somebody who looks like me. And I wonder what you guys think about that because I think my take on it is that the conversation has shifted. And I do think that she became a lightning rod because everyone was like, well, why her? Why is she the one who gets to do these things? Whereas now I think people can look at girls and recognize it as being this incredible satire of white women that only a white woman in those spaces could really have done. Yeah, I think the only way to fix this problem is to give access to people of colour to create and tell these same stories from their perspective. And I don't think it often doesn't work when you have a white person at the helm trying to tell stories of people of color,

because they get it wrong, they fuck it up. And it's just not representative. And I think one of the strengths of girls is that it's a white privileged woman making fun of these ridiculous white privileged women. And it is by design, those women live in New York and have a completely undiverse friendship group. That in of itself is quite funny and telling about who these people are. And so I think that was a time when diversity and inclusion was sort of like a numbers game. And it was like, we're going to create diversity inclusion by just showing you certain things on screen. But whether or not that did any material good is maybe it did to some extent, but not very much. Now we're a place where just diversity and inclusion has just disappeared out the window.

And you're not seeing anyone, different bodies, different races, different genders, whatever. That is all kind of trying to be stamped out. So it was better, but it's still, we've still never arrived at this place, which is that the access and privilege that Lena did have, did she is, I still, I still think she is a generational talent, but yes, she wouldn't have got through those doors without having that access. And a lot of the reason for that was she was white and privileged. So it's, it's leveling out the playing field for everyone so that those stories, because there will be Lena Dunham's of all different forms that we just will never get to hear from. And a point that

is often made. And this isn't even a critique of Lena Dunham. It's criticism of the entire industry and the world is that she can write this. She can write this so freely. She can satire herself and her friends and white women in general and also go deep on mental health issues and all of these things because she doesn't have the burden of representation that writers and creators of colour do. No one will go really. It's not really going to stick that you go,

this is what all white women are like. It's a very specific type. It doesn't stick the same way. There is not a community going. This is your chance. We don't hear from people from our community, our background. This is your one shot. Please don't squander it.

please don't misrepresent us. She's free and has always been free to show the mess. And I think that is why many people can't really enjoy girls the same way and as freely as perhaps a lot of us do. People did, I remember it was the character, season two, Donald Glover's character who plays a young black Republican. A lot of people really liked this, but a lot of people just went, it's tokenistic. It is a real jab at an interesting and complex black character on screen that falls flat and that came up again through all the series people were like oh okay there's bit parts available on this show for non-white actors but really not anything at the helm which as we say makes total sense of satire of white women who will only be friends with each other even when

they actually hate each other they won't diversify but yeah it is a shame that we have walked back so so many paces we've obviously now been talking about famsick I think for like three episodes because we couldn't stop and if you haven't read it yet, I would really recommend it. I listen to the audio book. And it is just, I know I've been saying this, it's just such a riot because it takes you through. I mean, it's so nostalgic and it takes you into like pockets of the world that you would just never have access to. There's just all these anecdotes about how, first of all, like, Lena gets this email from Judd Apatow. And her reply is so funny. She's like, I can't remember what her friend's called, but it's

something like, Rebecca, if this is you, I hate you. Jud, if this is you, I can't believe it. Like, she's so young and silly. And she just sends these ridiculous things. Then Nora Fron emails how they go for lunch, Nora Ephron tells her what type of fridge to buy. There's just all of these like incredible stories of this one woman's experience with fame that you think, God, this is what a life could look like. And then on the flip side, because I'm quite fearful of fame, and maybe we should talk about that as well, the fascinating correlation that she makes between what fame is like and what chronic illness, it's like, it really is kind of always a gilded cage. And like you said at the top, Richard, it does seem like she's come out unscathed, but boy, was she

scathed to get there. And I wonder if, especially as a woman, you ever can experience fame in a way that is just pure joy. I think Deer Leap is maybe the only person that seems to be getting like a really fun ride and nothing's really gone wrong. But yeah, the book was everything and more. I was excited about at the minute it was announced. I was excited the whole time I was listening and then I was sad when it ended because I was really enjoying it having it as an accompaniment. And Brave is the wrong word. I don't know what the right word is. But it's just, yeah, I thought it was incredible. It's very. honest, isn't it? And everyone keeps making points about her unique level of candor and this no like bars to what she will tell you, which there is no one else like her. She is willing to just

go there and say everything. Or it feels like she's just willing to say everything. Her like inner thoughts, the things that she's messed up on. And then also to just name names. There is so much, oh, there is so much gossip and there is so much tea in this book that I was not expecting. Because Even without that, I was absolutely enthralled. For somebody who is into pop culture, this book is amazing. Right from Chapter 1, there are so many names of people that she's just coming into contact with. When she mentioned putting on her first ever film, and this was the one before Tiny Furniture, I think it was like some other event space for emerging filmmakers.

She runs into the Safdi Brothers, and I was reading this in the park, and I gasped. I literally went, like something, like a jolt went through me. And then there's just more names, more names. more names, more names, more names, more names, talking about renting out a workspace alongside the Safdi Brothers, Greta Gerwig floats on by, all these people floating on by. And I just felt like jolted. My dream was being lived out and I was able to at least read it because I had no way of fucking living it. I mean, it is. I think the name dropping, not name dropping, I guess it's just naming, is really refreshing. Even in the cases where she doesn't name, there's enough detail there

that people are going, okay, this will be the work of a quick Google, I figure out who this is, which I think is really generous to the reader and you get away with it as a writer I think because you lay it all bare you know I think when you nail other people and it feels like an exercise in like a PR exercise in blame probably you do get sued but when you say all the ugly things that you did

and your role in things which have all become headlines and it's kind of strange to see even before I pick the book up headlines Lena Dunham cheats on Jack Antonoff Lena Dunham skewers, co-worker Adam Driver and then you read the actual word

And you go, well, yes, but no, it's not this. It's just an account of what happened. It's exploring the dynamics of workplace relationships that cross boundaries, created partnerships that do go sour because you can only be so close to another person, relationships with other famous people. I mean, it's interesting. Obviously, people are going to go, Jack Antonoff, slept with Lord, maybe, question mark, question mark, all of these things.

But actually the most interesting parts, for me, I obviously cobbled those up, were just the bits where she's talking about how it all fell and the ways that these relationships actually touched her, because they were just normal relationships with people in her orbit who do just happen to be now absolutely astronomically famous and married to film stars and starring in these franchises. At one point they were just her boyfriend or this weird actor that she had this kind of loaded, probably quite recognizable, will they, won't they relationship with? It should be absolutely, I think it was, I think it was Dolly who pointed this out in. It might have been Monica, again, the wine, says it shouldn't be relatable when someone writes

about these things. It should be like, wow, this is a Hollywood tell all. This is, but actually you do go, oh, I felt that. Yeah, I felt all of those things. You are a human being like me. And I just, it was actually the bits about her and her mother's relationship that I found really interesting because her mom is an artist in her own right. And she writes in the book that as much as her mom loves her, supports her to the hill is her best friend and her champion. It was really difficult as an artist in her own right, a female artist who would have had to fight to be there to suddenly have her work. and her persona yoked to her daughters, who was obviously being championed as like voice of generation,

but also like really lambasted. And I found that part of the book. I got a lot from that. I mean, I don't have that difficult relationship with my mum, but I am also a woman in the world trying to do something. And it's like the kickback of what happens when, like you say, you are famous. I do not want to be famous after reading this. I never have been, but especially now I'm like,

there's really many things I would rather be one of them is probably dead. It was Monica who said that thing about how am I related to this. But I think it's that thing that people always say, it's the more specific you are, the more relatable it is because you're actually, what you're tapping into then is you're talking about an emotion rather than a situation. And it is fascinating to me.

I mean, I was really thinking, I can't believe she's just saying all the stuff about Jack Antonoff and just saying it so plainly, but she has a really interesting way of talking about situations in a way that is just so plain and you just believe her that it is ultimately the truth, that you kind of can't really argue with it.

And I think it is that thing you said, like she's so honest about herself, like why would she be lying about, these other people. And I guess if you are friends with her, and she says this about Jenny, she says that Jenny said to her, I know you'll write about this someday. I know that this is your process, but please just don't write about it now. And she says in the book, and now felt the right time. So I guess being friends with her, you know at some point potentially you might end up in her book. But some of my favorite parts as well, but some of them were really harrowing, is the way that

she talks about sex and she did it in girls in the way she shows sex is so funny and so visceral. And there's a bit where she's like, and he fucked me in every hole I had, maybe some that I didn't. And you're just like, she's so funny. And then also she's got this incredible ability to kind of switch from quite a harrowing story to something very funny. And it's something that I find just so impressive and brilliant about her mind. Yeah, the humour is laugh out loud, funny. And I can't remember, I'm not listening to it. I'm reading it.

And I was laughing so much. I never want it to end. I feel really scared that it has to end at some. point. I don't know what I'm going to do. I might have to reread it again straight after. The thing that I found really fascinating, you're right about all the different kinds of relationships and how identifiable they are, but kind of mapping that onto a show that you know so well. Like even little tidbits like Zosha, who plays Shoshana, moving in with Jemima Kirk, and then them having a friendship breakup because Jemima Kirk, while still being married,

to claim dibs on somebody that Zosha apparently was casually hooking up with. I was just like, I love that bit of law. I'm so happy to have now learned this tidbit that otherwise serves me in no fucking way. I'm so glad I now know that. The thing that I found so distressing and so captivating was her relationship with Jenny. So Jenny is her co-creator on the show

and her collaborator, her... It felt like creative romance, their pairing. That's the way she describes it. She describes it as falling in love when they first start the show together. But it becomes clear that their relationship is just a good cop, bad cop sometimes when Lena is not doing what the network needs her to do. Or because Jenny's main investment is the show and her career, it kind of seems like the power

imbalance is really clear from the jump that Jenny will do anything she needs to do to get Lena to do what she needs to do for the show and then second is their friendship. But it feels like it's the other way for Lena. And there's times like starting the show at the beginning, she was in the throes of an eating disorder, not eating enough, lost a lot of weight. Jenny comes to her and says, you need to put on weight. It's not funny if the main character Hannah is skinny. It's funny if she is, you know, slightly overweight. That's where the humour comes from. And Lena says, you know, well, I'm finding that hard at the moment. And then Jenny's like, it's not fucking hard, put some food in your mouth.

And that's a direct quote. And I winced. I winced and I felt pain for her. This woman in her 20s, I think 23, 24 at the time, who is in love with this co-creator in her late 30s. who's gone through a divorce has all of this wealth of experience. It sounds manipulative. It sounds exploitative under the guise of, well, I love you, so I'm going to tell you what you need to do. And I felt the pain of that so deeply. I don't know why.

But their relationship and how much manipulation and exploitation and love and all of these confusing things fused together, which shouldn't be fused together. I found that really painful. Yeah, it's this idea. They have this creative partnership. And also all these pressures, contractual pressures, financial pressures.

Nina talks about the pressure she's under. suddenly 25 years old and dozens and dozens of workers, you know, people, hundreds of people relying on her and this thing to work so they can feed their families and not have their work interrupted. And then this other arm of this, this kind of behind the scenes, but also very powerful arm, is her creative other half who is having to say, or is choosing to say, you need to do this and choosing to say some quite, some really horrible things about her health. Because as, as Linda talks about, she links fame and sickness as you say. only but it's like she says people don't want to hear about either people do not actually want to hear

about your ill health and people do not want to hear about fame you you cannot really complain about both or either of them and she had both of them to complain about sounds like the most isolating thing in the world and it is the most heartbreaking end in the book as relieved as like most readers will be that this did end and obviously like i think it was quite public that they had gone their separate ways lennie letter wrapped up their productive company went in separate ways they released a statement i think people were really relieved to read this i certainly was it was so really sad. As sad as when you read about the breakup with Jack Antonoff, it just felt like, what a loss, what a necessary loss, but what a painful thing? So I think if it hasn't become clear enough that

we would really encourage you to read it. If you're a fan of girls, like we said, there is the stories about Jemima Jokirk as Jessa. There is a wealth in there. But it's also just so fascinating. She's such a clever, erudite, brilliant mind. And I think that you'll get something from it. And also I do think in this moment, I'm so fascinated to see where she goes because we did. I mean, we haven't talked about it here. We did talk about too much at the time. We're pretending that didn't happen. But let's see.

Maybe the next girls is on the horizon. Women, perhaps. That was the one thing we disagreed on this podcast. I love too much. Oh, sorry. Maybe I'll rewatch it. I thought it was okay. No, I love our fights.

Never change. It's sad because I want to do like three hours on this, but I know I can't. Thank you so much for listening this week. have any thoughts, different points of view, recommendations, anything at all, you can either DMS or leave them in our Spotify comments section. We read them all and we're always so grateful to get them. Thank you. Also, just checking that you have listened to our latest everything in conversation episode where we discuss a piece by the brilliant Shanti Joseph on something called the single tanks and why some women are worrying it may cost

their future. If you enjoy listening to us, then please do leave us a rating and a review. We love making this podcast and this really helps us to keep doing that. also gives a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod. See on Wednesday. Bye. Bye.