Live with Katie Herzog & Helen Lewis

Summary

Blocked and Reported: Live with Katie Herzog & Helen Lewis

Episode Date: May 8, 2026
Episode Theme:
A lively and candid conversation between journalists Katie Herzog and Helen Lewis, with Herzog acting as host and Lewis as a guest co-host in Jesse Singal’s absence. The duo primarily discuss Lena Dunham’s new memoir “Famesic,” delving into its themes of fame, feminism, family dynamics, personal boundaries, and Dunham’s career controversies. The conversation is peppered with pop culture references and insight into memoir writing, all delivered in their signature sharp, humorous tone, alongside audience interaction in a live setting.

---

Main Themes and Structure

• The experience and pitfalls of modern fame, especially within feminist and media circles
• Lena Dunham’s controversial public image and her new memoir’s treatment of past scandals
• The confessional/artistic memoir: candor, curation, and what gets left unsaid
• Family dynamics and the role of “intellectual exceptionalism”
• Why Lena Dunham is both resented and appreciated in pop culture

---

1. Opening Banter & Audience Engagement

[00:00-05:10]

• Lighthearted chat about remote work, time zones, and the proliferation of people able to join the live event.
• Herzog playfully interrogates Lewis about her recent travels to the Galapagos and gaming habits.
  • Quote [01:17]:
    "How do you have time to game, Helen?" – Katie Herzog
  • Helen explains she games late at night, unable to take her Xbox while traveling, and jokes about being a possible model train hobbyist.
• Fun asides about their own names being frequently confused with others, especially other “Helens” in journalism, and anecdotes about getting emails meant for their namesakes.

---

2. Discussion of the Lena Dunham Memoir

[05:41-11:10]

First Impressions and Overarching Takeaways

• Both enjoyed Dunham’s writing and humor, highlighting her candor.
  • Quote [05:55] (Helen Lewis):
    "One of the big themes of this is being famous is awful. And 2010's feminism involved a lot of women ripping each other apart on the Internet and becoming a target. And that was really unpleasant."
• They appreciate the memoir’s frankness about the pains of fame and public life.
• Herzog wanted “more murder” or some element of mystery, noting her own tastes in memoirs.
• Discussion of absent figures in the memoir:
  • Taylor Swift, who is only mentioned in the acknowledgments, and Dunham’s current husband, who is “almost entirely absent.”

---

3. On Sexuality, Candor, and Boundary Issues

[11:10-17:44]

• Lewis notes that a persistent theme is Dunham seeking out men to degrade her, connecting this to trends in contemporary literature (e.g., Sally Rooney’s prose about unsatisfying S&M experiences):
  • Quote [11:18] (Lewis):
    "She writes very, very well about the fact that her experience of sex throughout her twenties was essentially seeking out men to degrade her, to kind of confirm this belief that she was shit. Which is really interesting to me..."
• Extended discussion of Dunham’s extremely candid relationships with her parents and close friends, noting an “inappropriate lack of boundaries.”
  • Herzog: “She comes across as incredibly immature throughout the book.”
  • Lewis condemns the level of physical intimacy and lack of separation with parents as “wrong” and “symptomatic of something.”
• They dissect how Dunham’s family life is depicted: as a competition for attention, with the patient/invalid role conferring both infantilization and enormous power.

---

4. Revisiting and Fact-Checking Lena Dunham’s Scandals

[15:04-22:34]

• They recall controversy over a passage in Dunham’s first memoir involving her then-sibling Grace (now Cyrus) and a bizarre anecdote about pebbles, clarifying and fact-checking the details live.

  • Quote [16:14] (Herzog):
    "Let's fact check this because it is a kind of a slightly odd thing to put in a memoir. Like, I don't think it's that... [but] it's still an odd thing to write down and publish for no reason."

• Both agree that while the incident was blown up by critics, Dunham’s decision to reference major controversies in “Famesic” without spelling out specifics is frustrating. Herzog cites Dunham’s allusion to defending friend Murray Miller (accused of sexual assault) as a glaring example.

  • Quote [20:19] (Herzog):
    "She never spells it out. So this, I, I just, I found it like, as a, as an authorial choice, just incredibly annoying that you're not telling people exactly what you regret."

• Lewis offers that memoir inevitably “makes the case for the defense,” but agrees the opacity is annoying for readers.

---

5. The Art of Memoir: Curation vs Candor

[22:34-24:17]

• Discussion of the paradox of confessional writing: an appearance of “radical candor” may actually obscure or curate just as much as it reveals.
  • Lewis references Atlantic colleague Sophie Gilbert’s discovery of a repeated scene (a man jumping from a bridge during a Dunham photo shoot) appearing twice in the galley—a sign of revision to manage public perception.
  • Quote [21:50] (Lewis):
    "They have this promise that... I'm writing about this stuff about blood clots falling out of me. It's incredibly intimate. But then at the same point, it is this curated performance of intimacy... It's like an uncanny valley."
• Herzog shares her own experience of leaving out the “really embarrassing shit” from her own memoir, underscoring that everyone curates, even while purporting radical honesty.
• Lewis praises Dunham’s maturity in how she writes about ex-Jack Antonoff, noting a lack of melodrama or blame-casting.

---

6. Family, Upbringing, and Entitlement

[24:17-31:21]

• The duo unpick the Dunham family mythos of “intellectual exceptionalism,” analyzing how it shaped Lena’s worldview and relationships.
  • Dunham’s parents’ liberal bohemianism and over-involvement are cited as potential contributors to her inability to fully individuate.
• Herzog points out Dunham lived with her parents until after success; Jack Antonoff did similarly—which resonates with the idea of “failure to launch.”
• Lewis compares the Dunhams to the Mitford family, describing a self-reinforcing mythology and lack of boundaries.

---

7. Why People (Especially Women) Hate Lena Dunham

[33:28-35:31]

• Herzog’s theory: the root of Dunham hatred is that she is “normal-looking”—not ugly, but average compared to most celebrities, which punctures the myth that stardom is reserved for the “swans” of the world.
  • Quote [34:00] (Herzog):
    "What we resent is Lena Dunham standing next to Taylor Swift. Because that's a reminder... a normal person being scooped up and saying, you get the life of a celebrity... without looking as though she was born into that."
• Lewis expands:
  • Discusses genius, envy, and the importance of believing that exceptional rewards go only to the clearly exceptional, not to “someone normal.”

---

8. Audience Questions & Light-Hearted Asides

Scattered throughout (notably 07:12, 08:11, 32:09, 32:45)

• Helen shares her favorite Galapagos moment (snorkeling near a large shark at Pinnacle Rock).
  • Quote [07:17] (Lewis):
    "I went snorkeling... and I saw an absolutely enormous shark that was about three feet away from me. And that is a humbling experience. And I didn't die. So every day that I live now is the day that I survived a shark attack in my mind."
• Playful self-deprecation and mutual ribbing about hobbies, with Lewis confirming she owns Lego sets and Herzog joking, "It is so surprising that you're not married to a woman."
• Discussion of show business and body image, referencing Jenny Connor’s advice to Dunham to “stay fat”—with both hosts irreverently agreeing that “eat more” is less offensive than “lose weight.”

---

9. Notable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:55 | Lewis | "One of the big themes of this is being famous is awful. And 2010's feminism...was unpleasant." | | 11:18 | Lewis | "Her experience of sex...was essentially seeking out men to degrade her..." | | 16:14 | Herzog | "Let's fact check this because it is a kind of a slightly odd thing to put in a memoir..." | | 20:19 | Herzog | "She never spells it out...I found that so annoying." | | 21:50 | Lewis | "It is this curated performance of intimacy...It's like an uncanny valley." | | 34:00 | Herzog | "What we resent is Lena Dunham standing next to Taylor Swift... you get the life of a celebrity...without looking as though she was born into that."| | 07:17 | Lewis | "I went snorkeling...and I saw an absolutely enormous shark that was about three feet away from me..."|

---

10. Takeaways

• Lena Dunham’s “Famesic” is notably candid—sometimes to the point of discomfort—but also strategic in its omissions.
• Despite backlash and controversy, both hosts acknowledge Dunham’s authentic voice and her deserving of success.
• The conversation provides both pop-culture insight and a meta-reflection on memoir, fame, and the boundary between authenticity and curation.
• The harshest critiques—both in Dunham’s life and in the conversation—center neither on her skill nor her privilege, but on how her “normalcy” unsettles cultural myths around talent and celebrity.

---

11. Recommended Timestamps

• 05:41-06:43: Helen’s first impressions of “Famesic” and why she wishes Lindy West would read it
• 11:10-13:15: Sex, S&M, and the portrayal of immaturity and boundaries in the memoir
• 15:04-19:28: Revisiting the pebbles story, “Pebblegate,” and Dunham’s handling of controversy
• 21:32-22:34: Discovery of revision/duplication in Dunham’s memoir and the problem with confessional art
• 24:17-25:24: Handling of intimate relationships in memoir—praise for the treatment of Jack Antonoff
• 30:09-31:39: “Intellectual exceptionalism” and Dunham’s candid elitism
• 34:00-35:31: The cultural and psychological roots of resentment toward Lena Dunham

---

12. Tone & Style

The episode blends critical insight with dry wit and personal anecdote, characteristic of both hosts. They move swiftly between incisive analysis and irreverence, never shying from self-mockery or sharp judgments, but always returning to a humane curiosity about what it means to be famous, creative, or simply "normal" in an abnormal media world.

---

Useful for those who haven’t listened:
This was an honest, nuanced, and often funny deconstruction of the Lena Dunham phenomenon, her new memoir, and the ways culture consumes its female icons. Herzog and Lewis probe what makes Dunham exceptional, and what makes her the living embodiment of the average person’s ambivalence toward fame and authenticity.

Transcript

[A]

We are starting. All right. We have one person. It's just you and I and one other mystery person at this point.

[B]

Well, that's.

[A]

Can anybody hear us? Yeah.

[B]

I would have thought that most people have, you know, jobs and.

[A]

I don't think so.

[B]

And careers. So maybe more people will watch this on Catch Up.

[A]

Okay, so. Well, a bunch of people are now enjoying. So I think your thesis that people have jobs is wrong. Is wrong. Or they have jobs where you can watch Substack Labs at your computer.

[B]

Someone says they're working. Working remotely today, which I. Yes. Working remotely. Aren't we all, in some respects, working remotely all the time? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait. Let's. Before we. Before we get into it, I want to ask about your recent travels. I know you were at the Galapagos Islands and then you were in an island that I have all only heard of because of the Cormorant Strike novels. And I was discussing this with Jan and I said, look, Helen's with the big turtles at the Galapagos. And she said. She said, how does Helen have time to game when she travels so much? So first question comes from Jana. How do you have time to game? Helen?

[B]

That's a great. I'm glad that she's laser focused on the big issues. The answer is that I don't. And I'm quite sad about it. I just reinstalled Assassin's Creed shadows on my export. Why am I telling you? You couldn't care less about this. I might as well be talking about my hobby, making model trains.

[A]

Do you. Do you make model trains? I would not be surprised.

[B]

I would. I would if I were given the option. I. Obviously, I just. I live in a big city. I don't have the space for a model train. But, yeah, no, I. I play it. My husband is a lark and I'm an owl. Right. I don't know if this is how also the. The Katie Jenner marriage works, but that leaves us.

[A]

We're both larks.

[B]

See? Error. Error. Because we both now get. We both get a couple of hours at either end of the day where the other person isn't around, so he runs and Doom scrolls in the morning while I lays like a sea lion in bed. And then he goes to bed early and then I game. That's when I game.

[A]

Yeah. Well, that's good.

[B]

It's not my mood. I'm not. Obviously, I'm not going to take an Xbox with me. That would be insane. Yeah. No, and I. I Deliberately haven't got a switch because I, I don't trust myself.

[A]

You would take it with you.

[B]

I, I have this theory about lots of things. I had an argument with my boss, he wanted me to try five guys and I was like, why would I try crack cocaine? Why would I try.

[A]

There's much better shitty food than five guys. But I do think, I do think just for, you know, just for the true American experience. Next time you're over here, you might as well.

[B]

They cook it in oil, you know. Anyway, yeah, sorry.

[A]

Oh man, that sounds really, really dangerous. Okay, so we've got a good crowd. Someone says oh shit, I thought Helen Lewis was 70. Do you think it's the name?

[B]

Yeah, I actually had a link in the newsletter a couple of years ago which was to the. You can look up how many of the people who had your name are now dead. And I think something like 95% of all the Helens who've ever lived are dead. Basically. That is. It is the name of Nana and the rest are.

[A]

Yeah, and the rest of.

[B]

And the rest of British. Well, actually, funnily enough, I've got a piece coming out this week in which I spoke to Helen Andrews and she said she gets confused for me and I'd had to tell her that I get. I saw that Helen Rosner from the New Yorker complaining on Blue sky that she gets confused for me and people have a go at her. So I think there is like a kind of very much actually like Russian dolls. There are just like every. Helen is always being confused with one of the other seven Helens. There's a kind of lively Helen racism where we apparently all look the same.

[A]

Yeah, well you do all look the same. I mean you're all British. Well, I guess Helen Rosner isn't. I get. There's another Katie Herzog who is. She gets my emails all the time. We're sort of friendly and we have been since like before, like for years. And so she gets my emails all the time. But the funny thing is that she is not only not a terf, she has a page on Andrea James's creepy stalker webpage about how she's like trans positive. She's like a tra.

[B]

Not the bad one, not the exact. I got email. Have you ever heard of the game Bunko?

[A]

Mm mm. Okay, so Xbox or Switch?

[B]

No, this is an in person card game as I understand it, like bridge or something like that. For quite a while I was being invited to Helen Lewis who lived in South Carolina's Bunco games by her delightful Circle of retired friends and eventually I had to email them and be like, I'd love to come to your bunco game, but I live in England so I'm not going to be able to do that. But yeah, another great someone is asking if I'm an adult fan of Lego and I can say that as I'm here, I am currently looking. Actually, we've deconstructed most of it, but yes, I did have a Lego Millennium Falcon and the Lego Atak Walker. So I, the, the allegations are true.

[A]

It is so surprising that you're not married to a woman.

[B]

I know. I, I'm surprised by almost everything. But yeah, there we go. All right.

[A]

So people are complaining about my Internet. I thought it was your Internet, but apparently my Internet is bad. Are you able to hear and see me?

[B]

I'm able to hear and see you. I'm surprised that my Internet is not being sucked up with the yassifying filter that I've put on. That must be taking up a lot of processor power.

[A]

There's swamps being drained, peat bogs being drained in the UK for that. All right, let's get into it. So we are here to discuss the new Lena Dunham memoir, Famesic. Let's give first off just overall impressions. What did you think?

[B]

I thought it was really good. Not to bring it back to your friend of mine, Lindy west, but I sort of think in a way she should be sentenced to read this memoir and just be like, here's quite a self indulgent memoir that covers many of the same themes. Right. Like one of the big themes of this is being famous is awful. And 2010's feminism involved a lot of women ripping each other apart on the Internet and becoming a target. And that was really unpleasant. But, but I, I, you know, the bits about her addiction and recovery were less interesting to me because I've never lived through that. I don't know if you, from your point of view of somebody with alcohol issues, found that stuff more interesting, but the stuff about being the stuff dishing on girls was crackerjack and she's a very funny writer. So, yeah, my headline was. I'm pleased I read it.

[A]

Yeah. Helen, I'm kind of losing you a little bit. I wonder if I should move closer to my router. I'm going to do that. I'm going to take you with me. So this is going to work really well for audio. I'm just going to.

[B]

No, you do this while I talk to people. In the comments, people are advising you to use Wired Internet people have complimenting my appearance, which is very rare. Katie looks like she's very dedicated for me. Thank you.

[A]

All right, I'm going to try this. I have to switch to a different microphone. Let's see how this works.

[B]

Bunker is actually a dice game. Thank you, Tommy. This is good. This is good information. Okay, when you're doing this, I'll answer one. One of the questions, which is what was my favorite experience in the Galapagos? People will be able to read about this on theatlantic.com but I went swimming. I went snorkeling, specifically off Pinnacle Rock. And I saw a absolutely enormous shark that was about three weeks away, three feet away from me. And that is a humbling experience. And I didn't die. So every day that I live now is the day that I survived a shark attack in my mind. Okay, can you hear me? Yes.

[A]

Okay, great. Okay, well, I'm on my shittier microphone now, but I am closer. I'm sitting directly on top of my router, so hopefully that will work. Is this any better for people?

[B]

They're just enjoying the house tour, really. Your house does look lovely from the inside. It looks a bit like falling water. Do you think you can.

[A]

It is just like falling water, except for my waterfall is non functional.

[B]

Do you want. Should we talk about my.

[A]

My landscaping problems instead of.

[B]

No, I get enough of that on Instagram. If people want to follow your pond restoration project, only themselves to blame.

[A]

It's. It's been. It's been tough, this pond project. Okay.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I hope that works for everybody. I apologize. I'm a bit backlit here. But you're here for our words, not our faces. Okay, so you were saying about.

[B]

I enjoyed the book. Did you enjoy the book?

[A]

I enjoyed the book. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as other people because there was no murder in it. And I tend to exclusively like books with some sort of, like, mystery aspect. So it would have been better if there had been like, a gritty detective who was like a chain smugger.

[B]

She murdered quite a lot of people's reputations in it.

[A]

I did like that. I did like that. So, yeah, the things that I enjoyed about it were, you know, the writing was good. Lena Dunham is, surprise, surprise, a good writer. Moments were really funny. It's very earnest and vulnerable and she is self aware to a point. Only to a point, but to a point. And it was refreshing that just the level of candor was extremely refreshing, especially for a celebrity, because celebrity is so controlled now. You know, so curated Taylor Swifts. Even her songs are written in code. Her liner notes are written in code. And Lena Dunham is here naming names, so I did really appreciate that. Or naming some names. Taylor Swift's not being one of them. As you pointed out. She is. She. Tae Chae is mentioned in the acknowledgments, but not in the book itself. That would have improved it greatly. And the fact she also. I also noticed that she doesn't. So she's married. She's currently married to a man from. I think he's maybe from Brazil. He's from somewhere in South America.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And she doesn't. He's almost entirely absent from the book, which I found interesting that it was sort of like Lindy's in that way. Like, the wrap up is pretty short. She gets to. And like Lindy's also like, they're these two famed millennial feminists, but in the end, what they want is a man. Like, that's the thing that.

[B]

You should try it. Katie, I don't know why you've been here all the time. Sadly, you've got a lot to go saying for it. Yeah, I know what you mean. I think. I think it's. But I think that comes to the idea that if you're happy, it's boring and there's nothing to write about.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And both of them are saying, like, both of them are presenting a classical life story, which is, here's my happy ending. And in her case, it's like, I found this nice guy who's not actually into the Hollywood bullshit and he likes me even though I'm fat. And like, I'm finally. And one of the persistent things that I think is really interesting, which is, I mean, she's also much more in tune with the zeitgeist. I think she surfed the discourse wave much better than I think west has.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

She writes very, very well about the fact that her experience of sex throughout her twenties was essentially seeking out men to degrade her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To kind of confirm this belief that she was shit. Which is really interesting to me because that's also something that runs through all of Sally Rooney's novels. Sally Rooney's heroines often have these S and M experiences which are not presented in a sex positive way. Right. They're like, I got someone to hurt me. And it was, you know, and it was a sign that there was something sort of wrong. And actually I should have just found a nice guy who, you know, appreciated me treating me like a queen.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was distressing. She is. Someone in the comments says Lena Dunham is a lot hornier than I thought. She, you know, she's horny in the TV show. So I guess it's not that much of a surprise.

[B]

Yeah. How much of how horny, like how unhorny did you think that she. Well, I mean, she actually comes across as authentically horny, unlike Lyndy, who you just bless her. Just seems like somebody who's either got a very low sex drive or very low self esteem. And this is not her kind of primary thing she's looking for in a relationship, which makes that situation tolerable. Whereas, yeah, you get the sense that Lena likes to bang.

[A]

She definitely does, you know. And I assume that her parents wrote this book, which. Just the idea. And she like her candor with her parents when she's talking about sex to me is so uncomfortable. And I know that's something that some people do.

[B]

No, I'm gonna go more than that. I'm gonna be Calvinist about it. I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong and it's weird. I don't think it's right. I think it's symptomatic of something that you see throughout the book, which is an inappropriate lack of boundaries around other people. So she's constantly in bed with her mother. I'm sorry, you're an adult. That's like when Someone's breastfeeding a 7 year old. I'm sure in some ways you think it's really loving, but I'm out. Like separate yourself from your parents. And then she's also in bed with Jenny Connor, who was her sort of mentor and writing partner. Again, I can't. Do you imagine if you and Jesse don't get into bed together and write the podcast? That'll be a horrible point.

[A]

Jesse and I don't even touch. When we see each other, we wave from across the room. These are not. And I see this reflected on, you know, in TV kind of often where women in particular or siblings have these like really touchy relationships with like a friend or a brother or sister or whatever. And I find it so foreign to me. Like I just, I don't see. And I don't see that reflected. Maybe other people's friendships are like that, but certainly not mine and certainly not as an adult. As a younger person, sure, teenagers like young people like sort of piling into bed together, that's one thing. But as an adult, it comes across as very. She comes across as incredibly immature throughout the book.

[B]

But.

[A]

And her.

[B]

Yeah. I think there's a thing that's really interesting is that this is one of these things that this is a family memoir. And it's a family memoir about who gets to be the family's focus of attention, which I think she is very honest about. The bit that finally clicked it together is there's a description of like, let me get this right. Her maternal grandmother, who is a lifelong anorexic. And she writes about the fact that the whole family's project became like, let's get some food into Nana, basically. And Hadley Freeman, who we both know, wrote about this really brilliantly in Good Girls, her memoir of also being anorexic, which is that putting yourself in that patient role, like, I need everybody to look after me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is kind of infantilizing. But it also is. It's a position of incredible power. Yeah. Because everybody, you know, oh, no, if you do anything wrong, I'll die.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there's this really interesting thing where she talks about that fact that her mother's art career is eclipsed by her being in Girls. And her mother was quite resentful of that. Very weird and honest and kind of incredible thing to read. And then her sibling, who is now a man now using he pronouns.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Also hates, like being in the shadow of Lena as well, and is also described as having disordered eating right and exercising a lot as a teenager.

[A]

Did you read Cyrus? So the sibling, for people who haven't read the book and who are less familiar. So Lena has a trans now brother name's Grace, now named Cyrus. And Cyrus wrote a memoir which I have not read. I am curious to know if there is like, how much Alina is in. Is in the siblings memoir, because as you pointed out, I think on subsect or Twitter, Cyrus comes across as understandably resentful of the sort of Lena sucking all of the air out of the room. But also we like, yes, you got a memoir published on the value of your sister's brand. Like, that's. There's no fucking way that a random, you know, 20 something gets a memoir published from a major publisher without having the Lena Dunham association like that. Yeah.

[B]

And also Cyrus was the focus of the big controversy around Dunham's first memoir, not that Kind of Girl, in which she revealed that when they were kids, she put pebbles in then her Grace's vagina.

[A]

Well, Grace did it in her own vagina, not Lena put it. I reread this yesterday.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I actually have the passage.

[B]

Let's fact check this because it is a kind of a slightly odd thing to put in a memoir. Like, I don't think it's that. I don't think it's the way that it was presented. And it is like child abuse or anything like that. It's still an old thing to write down and publish for no reason.

[A]

Right? So the reason that I, like, went and looked and went back and looked this up specifically is because Lena does this thing. For the most part, I like the book, but she does two things that drive me absolutely crazy, and they're sort of really the same thing, but she does it twice. She alludes to some controversy in her past and she doesn't spell it out. And so the reader, if the reader has not been paying attention, is left wondering, like, what the fuck? Like what. Like conservatives were saying. You what. What is that about? And, and the, the more egregious time. I want to talk to you in a moment, but I've got the, the full passage about the Grace thing. As, as Grace grew. So this is. Lena would have been. Grace is like a baby at this time. So. And I think Lena is four years older. So Lena would have been five or six. As Grace grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection. $1 in quarters if I could get. If I could do her makeup like a motorcycle chick. Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Basic. Whatever she wanted to do, to watch, whatever she wanted to watch on tv, if she would just relax on me. Basically anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl. I was trying. Funny. It's funny.

[B]

I mean, this is. But this is the essential joy of Leonard Dunham. Right? Like the mad thing that she said in the 2010s was when she said, I wish I'd had an abortion. Yes.

[A]

Yes. Okay. She continues. One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long island playing with block and blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn't resist. And when I saw. When what I. When I saw what was inside, I was. I shrieked. My mother came running, running.

[B]

Mama.

[A]

Mama. Grace has something in there. My mom. Blah, blah, blah. There were pebbles. Grace had been. Grace had stuffed six or seven pebbles in there. So it's her. It's the, the sis, the sibling who actually stuffed her some pebbles in her. According to, this is according to a memory, but she would have been 6 7.

[B]

That's the thing.

[A]

It you. That's the thing. We don't know if this is true. This could be a completely made up memory. It's a bizarre thing to say, but this Kevin Williamson from the New Republic. I'm sorry, not the New Republic, from the National Review. He wrote that he, he read the book, gave it. I reread the. The interview or the review yesterday. Scathing review. More focused on Lena Dunham's privilege than on molestation.

[B]

That was very millennial feminist of him. Congratulations. I'm glad he checked. Her privilege for her.

[A]

Yeah. And this became this huge controversy. And so when she writes about it in the book, she, she, she like alludes to this cont. She never ever fucking spells it out, so you have to go and look it up. And then the more egregious example of her during this was when it came to her friend Murray Miller. Did you notice this?

[B]

This is the guy who was accused of rape or sexual assault. And she put out a statement in support of him. And then everybody piled on saying, hang on a minute, I thought you were meant to be the great supporter of women. And then in the book, this is vaguely alluded to, but like I was recovering from surgery or something like that. I was out of it.

[A]

But it's clearly. She says that it is the one thing that she regrets. Like of all of the things that Lena Dunham has, like, fucked up all of her like foot and mouth moments, the one thing that she truly regrets, according to this book, is defending her. Her friend and co writer, he was on Girls when he was accused of sexual assault. And she never, ever. She doesn't say his name, she doesn't say what. She refers to it as like the bad thing. And she says, yeah. And she says, and it's like, it's a, it's a moment that she clearly takes seriously. She regrets. She's been perseverating about this for years, but she never spells it out. And so this, I, I just, I found it like, as a, as an authorial choice, just incredibly annoying that you're not telling people exactly what you regret. You regret something, but you're not telling him what it is. And then she.

[B]

I'm just trying to be fair to her though, because there's an issue there, right. Which is that as far as I know, he was never arrested or charged.

[A]

Right. But she could have even, she could have even said, my friend was accused of sexual assault. And I defended him, but she doesn't. That far, it's completely opaque. And then she says, like, if I had, you know, if I. I. She's explicit. I'm not going to spell this out. And she says, if I had written this book anytime earlier, I would, but I'm not going to do that out of respect to the parties involved. Then just leave it out of the book. Like, don't make, like, as a re. Like, don't make me go Google something to figure out what the fuck you're talking about. I just find that, like, I found that so annoying.

[B]

But then you always have to, like, every memoir is essentially the case for the defense. Right, Right. You know, it is always inevitably to be biased. A more interesting example, I thought, for me, was Sophie Gilbert, my colleague at the Atlantic, got an early galley copy, and she found the same scene. It was in the book twice, the early copy. So it's the scene when she's photographed by Annie Leibovitz on the Brooklyn Bridge and a guy jumps to his death behind her during the photo shoot. And in the galley copy, in one version, everybody laughs about it. It's like, oh, bloody hell, what's happening? And in the second one, they just go about their business and are kind of quietly shocked by this.

[A]

So an editor was like, let's smooth this one out a little bit.

[B]

Right. The final version, the one where they, like, make dark jokes about it, has gone. And only the kind of. Only the approved version remains. And I thought that was really interesting. I said to Sophie, I think that's because she worried about, like, Pebblegate 2.0.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it does show you exactly the problem with the memoir, which is why the Lindy west memoir affected so much controversy, because they promise you this raw, unfiltered authenticity, and they will often given you extraordinarily intimate details. Like, I've really heard a lot more about the inside of leonardunum's intestines and uterus than I ever asked for. So they have this promise that, like, I can't. You know, I'm writing about this stuff about blood clots falling out of me. It's incredibly intimate. But then at the same point, it is this curated performance of intimacy. Yeah. And, and, and, and when you bump on that, it. It's like an uncanny value. It actually makes you feel even worse about it because you've been told so much, like, you're getting the good stuff, you're getting the real stuff. I'm not leaving anything out here.

[A]

Yeah, no, you're totally right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, I experienced that writing my own book because, like, people who have Read like, it is exposing in a way. But when I did, when I did press, after. After it came out, and people would ask me, like, what. You know, you're very candid about, like, these embarrassing things that you did. I'm like, the embarrassing shit didn't make it in the book. Like. Like, sorry. Like, if I were truly, like, truly humiliated about something, I'm not going to put that in the pocketbook. And they wouldn't either. Nobody would. I mean, maybe. Maybe some person would. Maybe someone has that kink. But no.

[B]

Oh, I mean, I was, but you have to kind of. That is the promise of memoir. Really great memoir. Another one of my Atlantic colleagues, Scott Stossel, wrote a memoir about being Anx. And there's an incredible scene in it where he accidentally shits himself in the Hamptons or, like, in some very posh. And he has to get, like, a towel and he has to get, oh, go and waddle through the house. And it is excruciating.

[A]

Like, it's one thing to do it at five guys, but in the Hamptons.

[B]

But anyway, like, you know, in some posh place, anyway. But it is just. It's a really good memoir about anxiety because it's exactly the problem with anxiety, which is that you spend all this time wondering about the worst happening. Sometimes the worst does happen. So the anxiety isn't completely ludicrous. It really gets at that, that tension that anxiety exploits in somebody as anxiety. I really appreciated that. But yeah, I just. That does make me think, what did he leave out of the book? If you're willing to put that in, what are you leaving out? The other thing I thought she does really nicely is that actually she writes about people that she likes. And her way that she writes about Jack Antonoff, her ex boyfriend, I think is actually is quite mature.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She writes about. There's a lovely scene of them falling in love where they just. They talk all night. And she. She says we were like twins who, you know, parents should have separated them for the sake of their sleep schedules. He calls her a modern Woody Allen and she puts in brackets when that. Back when that was still a compliment. Yeah. But then also they. They cheat on each other. And she doesn't.

[A]

She's. She's not. I don't. She's not explicit that he cheated on her.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, she is. He cheated on her with Lord. Right. And the.

[A]

But I don't think she's explicit about that.

[B]

I didn't.

[A]

And I don't know that he did cheat. I mean, Lord would have been like a minor or he.

[B]

Emotion emotionally.

[A]

Yeah, no, for sure.

[B]

Yeah, we'll say. Like, there's a bit about how he gave her all this love and attention that this time he wasn't giving to Lena. He was very ill. But the thing that was kind of interesting about that is I thought she resisted the temptation to write that in a kind of, here I am, the noble Snow White heroine who just gets once again mistreated by the evil man. And it was actually, it was. It was a more interesting account of a relationship breakup for being, you know, upfront about the fact that both of them did things wrong.

[A]

No, I. Yeah, I think you're right about that. I think that in her relationship, like, her, like the most important relationships of her life, she did handle that with more care, I think, you know, it is. It's interesting to see who she protects and who she doesn't. She doesn't seem to protect her parents, or maybe she does because there might be weirder shit that we don't know about. And, and in fact, when I was, when I was re. I can't. I did read her first memoir, but it's been so long, I don't really remember it. But when I was reading the Kevin Williamson review yesterday, his review makes it seem like the parents were incredibly shitty parents. Like. Like if we, if she were a man, we would call this a failure to launch. And you do see some of that reflected in just. I don't mean abusive, I don't mean neglectful, but like, too much attention, like too, too coddling, for sure. Like, like, basically they, they acted like millennial parents before millennials had kids. And, and she does seem pretty frank about, like, writing, you know, about her mom's sort of jealousy of her success. I mean, that's something someone in the

[B]

comments is pointing out. There isn't anything negative about her dad, Carol Dunham, who is.

[A]

No, there's not.

[B]

He is just a sort of strong, silent type who says things occasionally like, I don't think that's a good idea, Lada, or, you need to come home now, or whatever it might be. I think that relationship is a lot less complicated than the relationship with her mother. But nonetheless, there is still a bit of kind of, daddy, Daddy, look at me, Daddy, love me, Daddy. In this slightly Lolita ish kind of show off way that I think, you know, you know, I really like my parents, but I don't need them to sign off on everything that I do. I don't need them to protect me. Like, that's Your failure to launch thing is right there is a. Like, the apron strings have just not been cut. Really? And is that her fault? Is that their fault? Is that just about their personalities? Hard to say. Can you hear me? I lost you. I lost you. But I have you again there. Okay.

[A]

All right. We're good. That was another thing that I found interesting was. God, I just lost my thought when we got frozen there. Wait, you were talking about her father.

[B]

Yeah, her dad. And then the kind of apron strings.

[A]

Oh, right. Oh, right. So it wasn't just. So she lived with her parents until basically she was a massive success and got her. Her own apartment. Jack also lived with his family. Really.

[B]

Really.

[A]

For a really long time. And I wonder. There was very little inspection on, like, she's. She is very candid, but about some things. But there wasn't that much inspection about why she had this overbearing relationship with her parents. Like, what is the root? Like, I. She. I'm sure that she has spent more hours in therapy than I've spent, like, watching television in my life. Like, the woman has, you know, and I watch TV a lot. She. You know, like, clearly she's introspective, maybe to a. Maybe too. Too much, but she. But there was no. I mean, did you find that to be an oversight? That I'm like, you have this strange relationship. Why aren't we hearing about. Why? What's the root of this? Is it just, like New York real estate prices? Why are you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Why are you still, like, going home to your parents after you have your own apartment and having your dad rub your back? What is going on here?

[B]

I think that. I mean, it reminded me a bit if you ever read the. There's brilliant books about the Mitfords, and you can read their letters, and they've all got nicknames for each other. You know, they talk in this language, boodledige, and they all call each other, you know, whatever. But they're also so all heavily invested in this family mythology. And I think that's the thing. I think the Dunhams have this very strong family mythology, which is, we're bohemians and we're artists, and we can't be constrained by normal rules. And it manifests in all of them in different ways, you know, and it manifests in Cyrus in his kind of rebellion. Yeah. So I just think. I don't think maybe you can't really see that from the inside. It's quite hard.

[A]

Yeah. She uses the term intellectual exceptionalism, and that's something that her family actively. They really? They really think that they are better than other people, smarter than other people, more artistic than other people? She has she. At another. So she. She's clearly, like, raised with that sense of. I don't know if it's entitlement, but superiority. And then she. At another point, she tells Jack, they're at some party, and she tells Jack, I don't belong on the girlfriend couch. You really, man. Do you think anyone belongs on the girlfriend couch?

[B]

I think you do.

[A]

You do think other girls belong on the girlfriend couch. But. And I find that stuff, like, it's like the kind of shit, like, both makes me like and dislike her because she's admitting this, she's admitting her elitism, which is sort of refreshing. But she's still.

[B]

I thought that was really good on the podcast circuit that she did where she was like, I'm kind of annoying.

[A]

Oh, totally.

[B]

You are. Yeah, you are annoying. But that doesn't. Like, actually, that means you're a better artist because you do admit to things that other people would, you know, would hide.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that's the thing. I came out of it more certain that she is. She does deserve her success and she deserves everything. Oh, totally, actually. And that's, to me, was the most, for me, the most interesting bits of the book, actually. The bits about the relationship with fame and the feeling of, like, what happens when you suddenly get lifted out among the common herd and everybody thinks, why not me? Why not me? And, you know, because I think anybody who's had any kind of success will have had to deal with that. And the bit that she describes really well is the bit where people switch from wanting something from you. Nice as pie. And then you haven't given it to me, so you're a bitch. Or you have given it to me. But now I feel humbled that I needed to ask. So you're a bitch.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I think, you know, probably there'll be women listening to this who will recognize that in a bit, like, the kind of smile, darling. You know, stock up, cow. Like, there is a kind of fame version of that. Right. Which is that it just humbles other people to be in this supplicant role. And therefore they just innately, no matter how nice you are to them, they don't like you.

[A]

Yes, my. So both her book and Lindy's book made me very glad that I'm not famous. I mean, they both make same ends. And honestly, working on a television show. So I'm kind of terrible.

[B]

Awful. Like being in a war.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But with. With craft services, which would be better.

[B]

Not worth it. Everyone gives me meals made. If you're in a war, it's worth it. Join the army.

[A]

Yeah. Resources Catering. I think that the. Sorry, go ahead.

[B]

What about that bit? What do you think about the bit where Jenny Connor tells her to stay fat after the pilot of Girls? Or like Hollywood fat, I. E. Like a size 8. I was like. She says, this isn't funny if you're not chunky. And I was like, that's an awful thing to say to someone. Also factually accurate.

[A]

And also, I wish that I would love someone to say that to me. Eat more.

[B]

Eat more.

[A]

That sounds. I don't know, it's like for some reason I didn't have. If she had said Jenny Connor told her to say that she needed to lose weight, I was like, you're a monster. She's like, eat a burger. I'm like, that sounds good.

[B]

No one. No one likes you in your thin privilege, Katie Hertz.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, it's so hard for me. I can just eat everything I want

[A]

no longer now that I've reached my 40s.

[B]

But, yeah, I thought that was. That was kind of interesting because she's. Again, it's this problem of confessional art where what you're selling is your body and yourself. And, you know, and I, as the veteran of somebody who's watched a lot of America's Next Top Model and then also the expose on America's Next Top Model, it's like, there is a fundamental problem in this industry which is that people are going to say very, very personal things about you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you're. You're selling this. The product that you're selling is yourself. Yes. And I don't know actually how we can clean that up and make that nice. I don't think there's only so much that we can do by putting in codes of conduct, because these are fundamentally true things.

[A]

Do you? Okay, so I have this theory that the reason that people hate Lena Dunham, and as Leigh Stein points out, she has managed to convert many of her haters into fans through this memoir.

[B]

The opposite of that. Again, that just makes me feel bad for Lindy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

What she thought would happen, that you'll write a memoir and suddenly you'll go, oh, my God, you're right. You have introduced. To see it happen to someone else must just be awful.

[A]

Yes. So my theory about the genesis of Lena Dunham's, the hatred towards Lena Dunham is that it's because she's normal. Looking. And I'm not saying she's, she's ugly or unattractive, I'm not saying that. But she's normal looking. She looks like a human. And most celebrities do not look like the rest of us. And because of that, whether that's from birth or because they live in Hollywood and they've looks back, you know, their way to being tens, there is this sense that they are a species apart from us. Like, nobody resents Taylor Swift for her success. She looks like a swan, right? She's genuinely talented. Yes, I'm a Swifty, I'm a fan. But she also doesn't look like a human, like a normal human. What we resent is Linda is Lena Dunham standing next to Taylor, to Taylor Swift. Because that's a reminder that it's like, yes, like a normal person being scooped up and saying, you can live in this. You get this, you get this. The life of a celebrity, you get the life of fame and privilege and power without looking as though she, she was sort of born into that. So that's my theory, is that all of this resentment towards her is rooted in jealousy and resentment about her looks. That it's not about her privilege or being a Nepo baby or her lack of talents. It's that she's a, you know, she's a five. She's normal. She's like everybody else.

[B]

She's not even five. She's. She's hired. She's definitely above. Have you seen, like a true average of people? I mean, some people out there are hideous.

[A]

Katie, I've been to England, yes, I also watch British tv.

[B]

But this is not to get like into my sales spiel, but, like, this is the genius myth. My book. A lot of it is about the category of genius, and part of that is about dealing with envy, which is just to say, let the people who get all this special attention and rewards and whatever it is, they're different. They're special people. They've got, you know, an IQ of 190, or they've got this special talent that was obvious when they were two and a half and not that they are. It could have been you if you'd worked harder or it could have been you if you were luckier. You know, you just have. If you've been in this place and not that place, because it's easier for us to think that people who get exceptional rewards are sort of somehow destined for it from birth and therefore that relieves you of feeling bad about it, because it could never have been exactly the thing. That's one thing I think is very true. So, yes, she just had the misfortune to look like an attractive but normal person rather than a kind of freakish alien. But also the show.