Lena Dunham apologized to Odell Beckham Jr. after joking about him ignoring her at the 2016 Met Gala, assuming it was because he didn’t want to sleep with her.
“I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” Dunham said in an interview with Amy Schumer for her Lenny Letter newsletter published on Friday, Sept. 2. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to f— it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cellphone.’ It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, ‘This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes,’ ” she added.
Shortly after the interview went live, Dunham was dragged on social media. So, she turned to Instagram for a little damage control. “I owe Odell Beckham Jr. an apology,” she wrote in a lengthy post on Saturday, Sept. 3.
“Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don’t rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it’s hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage,” Dunham continued, alleging insecurity was the root of her random rant.
“This felt especially intense with a handsome athlete as my dinner companion and a bunch of women I was sure he’d rather be seated with,” she continued. “But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts. I feel terrible about it. Because after listening to lots of valid criticism, I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don’t know AT ALL. Like, we have never met, I have no idea the kind of day he’s having or what his truth is.”
“But most importantly, I would never intentionally contribute to a long and often violent history of the oversexualization of Black male bodies — as well as false accusations by White women toward Black men,” the “Girls” star continued. “I’m so sorry, particularly to OBJ, who has every right to be on his cellphone. The fact is I don’t know about his state of mind (I don’t know a lot of things) and I shouldn’t have acted like I did.”
Meanwhile, Beckham as not yet responded. What are your thoughts on Dunham’s apology? Sound off in the comment section below.
