Lena Dunham looks a bit different these days. Critics of the actress’ apparent weight loss have gone as far as to label her a “hypocrite” for slimming down, citing her longtime defiant stance against Hollywood’s toxic beauty standards.
Appearing on “Ellen” Tuesday, though, the “Girls” star reminded everyone that her appearance has no impact on her body politics.
“You always look great, but I know that you got a lot of flack for losing weight, which is ridiculous,” host Ellen DeGeneres began the conversation.
The actress, of course, wholeheartedly agreed with DeGeneres’ assessment and launched into a discussion about the no-win situation women in the public eye face as their bodies, seemingly inevitably, become subject to public scrutiny.
“It’s just so crazy because I spent six years of my career being called ‘bag of milk’ on the internet,” Dunham said, adding examples, “‘bag of milk,’ ‘baby cow,’ ‘aging cow.’”
“I never felt self-conscious about it. Anyone who was going to take the time to say something negative about my weight on the internet wasn’t someone I was particularly keen to impress anyway,” she told DeGeneres. “Then, I had this experience of my body changing and suddenly I got all these people being like, ‘You’re a hypocrite! I thought you were body positive! I thought you were a person who embraces bodies of all sizes!’ I do, I just understand bodies change. We live a long time. Things happen. Andrew Rannells could get very fat. We don’t know.”
She added, “As a woman in Hollywood, you just can’t win.”
DeGeneres, who is no stranger to public judgment, responded, “You can’t win if they think you’re too heavy or too thin.”
After reports describing Dunham as “happy and healthy” as before-and-after pictures began making the rounds online, the “Girls” actress powerfully responded to online speculation with a lengthy Instagram post about how she doesn’t “give even the tiniest of shits what anyone else feels about my body.”
Read her full post below.
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