Lena Dunham has admitted to cheating on her longtime ex-boyfriend Jack Antonoff with a childhood flame during a particularly difficult period in their relationship.
Writing candidly in her new memoir, Fame sickwhich was released this Tuesday, the Girls creator revealed that she reached out to her high school boyfriend, Nick, while recovering from a hysterectomy in 2017.
Dunham, 39, explained that she was struggling with a growing addiction to medication and a sense of separation from Antonoff at the time, leading her to seek solace elsewhere while the music producer was away on tour.
The actress described one particular night when she met up with Nick after asking him to cheer her up after her surgery.
In a remarkably blunt passage from the book, Dunham recalls telling him in a taxi that she had been through something “terrible” and didn’t want to discuss it, but needed him to sleep with her and “do all the work.”
She wrote that the encounter provided a sense of euphoria that she had previously only found through intravenous drugs, noting that the act made her feel “alive,” even as she struggled with the guilt of being an “unfaithful woman.”
Despite the infidelity, Dunham recalls a heartbreakingly tender end to her five-year relationship with Bleaches frontman.
She describes one morning over breakfast where she sobbed as she told Antonoff that they both knew they weren’t making each other happy anymore.
According to the memoir, they put their foreheads together and wept, acknowledging each other as their first great love.
When a “delusional” Dunham asked if they could still go on dates, Antonoff told her they could do whatever she wanted, feeling both relieved and “euphoric with adoration” when they decided to split.
At the time of their split in early 2018, reps described the breakup as “amicable,” though these new revelations hint at a much more complex and painful story behind the scenes.
Since their time together, both have moved on and married other people; Dunham married musician Luis Felber in 2021, while Antonoff married actress Margaret Qualley in 2023.
