In her new memoir, “Famesick,” looks back on the uproar caused by a “TMI” story she told in her first book, “Not That Kind of Girl”

Lena Dunham reflects on allegations she abused her younger sibling, recalls mending their relationship

In her new memoir, "Famesick," looks back on the uproar caused by a "TMI" story she told in her first book, "Not That Kind of Girl"

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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April 14, 2026 1:35 p.m. ET

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Lena Dunham attends 'I Wish You All The Best' premiere on Oct. 27, 2025. Credit:

Theo Wargo/Getty

- Lena Dunham's new memoir, *Famesick*, addresses allegations of childhood sexual abuse stemming from her first book, *Not That Kind of Girl*

- Dunham admits that she had been "initially unafraid" because she believed that "any logical person" wouldn't take the accusations seriously.

- The *Girls *creator recalls how the backlash affected her relationship with her younger brother, Cyrus.

Lena Dunham is looking back on one of the biggest and most difficult scandals of her career.

Amid the many bombshells Dunham drops in her new memoir, *Famesick*, the filmmaker takes the opportunity to reflect on the allegations of child sexual abuse prompted by her first memoir, 2014's *Not That Kind of Girl.*

"I was shocked when a conservative media site analyzed the book carefully, pulling choice passages and coming to the conclusion that I had engaged in sexually inappropriate childhood behavior with my sibling," Dunham writes in *Famesick*, referring to *The National Review* and *Truth Revolt* accusing her of inappropriate conduct with her brother, Cyrus. (Cyrus identifies as transmasculine nonbinary and formerly went by the name Grace.)

Lena Dunham attends 'Too Much' screening on June 23, 2025.

Justin Palmer/Getty

Dunham admits that she had been "initially unafraid" at the time because she believed that "any logical person" would see the backlash "for what it was: an attempt to cherrypick sections to create a narrative that spoke to the idea that I — and by extension, the majority of feminists — were not crusaders for justice but, in fact, wanton perverts."

The passages in question included anecdotes about Dunham masturbating next to Cyrus while they shared a bed and, out of curiosity, inspecting her sibling's genitals when they were ages 6 and 1, respectively.

"I didn't consider what I'd written to be particularly salacious," she notes. "And anyway, what about the things I hadn't included? I'd decided against describing the time, age four, I announced to a group of near-strangers that my punishment at home for misbehavior was having 'a fork stuck up my vagina.' (It was not.) I don't know where I came up with that, but I've always been confused by anyone who doesn't recognize that children are inherently innocent, and yet their imaginations are endless and deranged."

Contrary to her belief, the criticism spread on social media, increasing the number of voices accusing Dunham of abusing Cyrus.

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Dunham spoke out against the claims on social media before sharing an official statement about the matter.

"I mounted every defense I could: I took to Twitter to cry smear campaign, male bulls---, to say YOU're the creepy ones for even thinking this," she remembers in *Famesick.* "And while I do believe there were people who were genuinely agitated by the phrasing and what it evoked for them, who felt betrayed by the words — and to them, I am sorry —I believe there were many more who saw the chance to eradicate someone who had heretofore been only a nuisance to them, whose picture they didn't care to scroll past, a person they deemed unworthy of her accomplishments and her adulation, who was taking their chances and their cash in the zero-sum game of life."

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Dunham writes that she was most worried for her brother, who was "just sprouting wings, getting out from under the type-A straight-girl drag he'd worn for all of high school."

"What I had been guilty of on the page, what the internet should have charged me with and given me a short sentence for, was poor phrasing — maybe a second count for TMI," she writes. "What I was now guilty of seemed to be a laissez-faire attitude about what was mine to confess, which had derailed the life of the person I had felt most tasked with protecting."

Dunham shares that she had been trying to share "what a mystery" her brother had always been to her. "It was ironic that as a 6-year-old, I'd wondered if he had a vagina, when what I didn't understand for the entirety of our shared childhood was that he wasn't my sister," she admits. "Eight years ago, around the time Cyrus came out as trans, he and I were still working to mend our relationship. It wasn't just the incident around the book — since the moment I'd begun to have a public life, it had gobbled up the space around his private one, however unintentionally."

Lena Dunham attends 2025 Tribeca Festival on June 14, 2025.

Jason Mendez/Getty

"It didn't help that the champagne fizz of new fame makes even the most generous people temporarily narcissistic, obsessed with their own image and its success or failure," she adds. "But the book had been a clear turning point, after which he seemed to feel safer being as far away as possible from the ricocheting bullets of my public persona."

The *Too Much *creator recalls how there was always a distance between her and Cyrus, wondering if it was created by her brother doubting her ability to not include him in "the always unfolding personal monologue of my work."

"And every time I said sorry, it was for the wrong thing," she writes. "Every time he shared something that was nagging at him, I pushed too hard to fix it, as if by doing so, I could also fix us. There was nothing I wouldn't have bought him, no distance I wouldn't have flown to him, and yet I couldn't give him the only thing he was asking for — space."

Dunham shares that it wasn't until "much later" that she and Cyrus "found our way back to each other."

*Famesick *is now available in bookstores.

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