In her newly released memoir Famesick, Lena Dunham reveals she engaged in an affair during the final stages of her five-year relationship with musician Jack Antonoff. The Girls creator details how reconnecting with a middle school boyfriend, referred to only as Nick, unfolded into a secret liaison while Antonoff was away on tour.
Dunham writes that tensions in her relationship began surfacing in 2017, noting Antonoff's "closeness" with a teen pop star he was producing at the time. Concurrently grappling with health issues following a hysterectomy, she reached out to Nick for comfort. "I needed to be cheered up," she recounts in the book.
Their encounters quickly escalated. Dunham describes meeting Nick by a bridge, where she "let my lips wander slowly across his face." The affair continued over several days, including a clandestine visit to her parents' empty home. There, she writes, "He looked deep in my eyes as he moved over me and said: 'You're making me want to cut the brakes on your boyfriend's car.'"
Upon Antonoff's return, Dunham hoped the affair might somehow repair their relationship. "I had fixed myself, proved I could be the freaky sexy lively young woman he fell in love with," she reflects. "I had exorcised the demon."
However, the following morning she confessed her unhappiness, leading to their breakup in 2018. "We put our foreheads together and wept," Dunham recalls. Each expressed that the other would remain their "first great love."
After splitting from Antonoff, Dunham was briefly engaged to Nick before that relationship ended later in 2018. She married musician Luis Felber in 2021. Antonoff married actress Margaret Qualley in 2023.
Famesick was published on April 14.