Lena Dunham: The 7 most important revelations from her New York magazine profile

There’s a long-running internet conspiracy theory that Dunham kills her pets; it began last year when she gave up her adopted dog, Lamby, because he had severe anxiety and behavioral issues. After Lamby — whom she had written about in The New Yorker — bit her, she Instagrammed a photo of the bloody damage. Later, she posted the story of giving him up on the app, too. Soon after, an employee from BARC, the shelter she’d adopted him from, wrote an email claiming the dog was just fine, actually, until he met Dunham. In June, Gia Marie, a Sphynx cat she had adopted, died suddenly; a couple of months later, her 13-year-old Yorkie, Bowie, died too. Gia Marie had lung damage after surviving a house fire, Dunham explains to me, and Bowie … well, when you are a nice person who adopts end-of-life pets, sometimes they die.

Dunham wanted to be drug-free in order to enter intensive treatment for her previously undiagnosed PTSD. She had begun to experience panic attacks and crippling depression. She says the PTSD was a result of the trauma of sexual assault and “medical trauma.” Gynecological appointments were particularly triggering. She began prolonged-exposure therapy (and keeps harassing The New Yorker’s David Remnick to let her profile the therapist who created it. So far, no go).

“[I]t was so embarrassing,” she says, closing her eyes. “It was awful because I felt like a weird — ” She cuts herself off. “I don’t think anything happened between them. I can never know someone else’s life. I have never spoken to Ella [Lorde] about it. We haven’t talked since Jack and I broke up. It was awful, and I couldn’t do anything about it except trust that what he was saying to me was true.”

The only times Dunham gets uncharacteristically tight-lipped are when I ask questions about Konner. When she starts her answers, they are usually hedged with “All I will say is” or “I don’t want to speak for Jenni.” It seems there was no explosive breaking point but rather a slow dissolution. People who are close to both of them say they are no longer friends.

Did Simmons enjoy it? “No.”

Dunham seems shocked. “You didn’t hate it, though, did you?”

“Kind of.”

She sent a screenshot of a motivational text conversation she’d had with her friend Lady Gaga, who is saved in her contacts as Lady Gaga, not as Stefani…

…She called her “good friend” Emmy Rossum, who asked what she wanted to do to feel better…

…”I texted Amy Schumer the other day, and she was like, ‘How are you doing,’”…

…She’s still friends with Taylor Swift, which surprises even her….

…She’s also working with friends, like Nicole Richie, to help them develop their own writing…