Lena Dunham and Longtime Co-Creator Jenni Konner Call it Quits

Jenni Konner and Lena Dunham at The 2017 Met Gala Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Just six months after Lena Dunham and her longtime boyfriend, musician Jack Anatoff, broke up, Dunham called it quits with her longtime artistic partner, Jenni Konner. Konner and Dunham share a whole family of brain children — The Lenny Letter, HBO’s upcoming show, “Camping”, and “Girls,” the highly acclaimed, highly critiqued show about four women navigating the waters (or in their case, skyscrapers) of New York City and their adult friendships. Dunham and Konner put out a joint statement saying that they while upcoming projects are taking them in different directions, they will remain friends and won’t rule out working together again.
The 45-year-old scriptwriter first met Dunham in 2010 through Judd Apatow, an Executive Producer for “Girls”, who brought Konner on to work alongside Dunham. The two women instantly clicked.
“She started out basically having to babysit me,” Dunham admitted to NPR. She adds, “Acting, getting naked in front of people, the public criticism that comes with it has been really emotionally draining, and unfortunately Jenni’s been put in the position of having to care-take. But it’s something she does with so much grace you would never think it was hard for her.”
With celebrity divorces on the rise, we’re mourning their split the way we would if Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were to go their separate ways. But, while their co-producing days have been put on hold as their contract with HBO is up at the end of the year, their friendship is still very much alive.
“We have had one of the most significant relationships together in our adult lives and we respect each other’s choices,” Dunham and Konner told The Hollywood Reporter. “While our interests are pulling us in different directions right now, we are excited about our current work and are firmly committed to the projects we have together. HBO has been our home for quite some time and we look forward to continuing there as we both move forward.
While we don’t know how their split will affect their daily feminist newsletter, we’re hoping for our sakes (and Lenny) that they file for joint custody.
Bonnie is an intern at The Forward.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.