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Lena Dunham Reveals She Was Briefly Engaged After Jack Antonoff Split

Lena Dunham on Where She Stands With Jack Antonoff After Split
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On good terms? Lena Dunham opened up about where she stands with ex Jack Antonoff following their split in 2018.

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“We fell in love when I was really young,” Dunham, 33, told Cosmopolitan UK in a cover story for its March issue. “I was 25. I look back and we had a great ride, we cared for each other, but you know what? We were both starting our careers and that was our true passion. The love you have for someone doesn’t disappear because you don’t have them; it’s just logistically it doesn’t work anymore.”

The Girls alum called Antonoff, 35, a “dear friend” that she still has “love” for. “Has it been easy every second? No, it’s not easy to divide life with someone,” she admitted.

“There are definitely moments where I was catty, rude or sassy, but he has been beautifully accepting of those and I’ve been able to be accepting of his anger too,” the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actress continued. “What’s really nice is we don’t try to pretend that we don’t have this history together, but we’re also willing to move forward.”

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Dunham began dating the musician in December 2012, but they called it quits in December 2017 after five years together. A source told Us at the time that Dunham didn’t wish any “ill will” toward her longtime boyfriend, adding: “He was her first love. Their split was mutual. The relationship is done.”

In the aftermath of the breakup, the Not That Kind of Girl author re-entered the dating scene and was even engaged briefly to a former beau. (The publication noted that he ex popped the question “with the lace of a Timberland boot while they were snowed in at her parent’s apartment.”)

Lena Dunham on Where She Stands With Jack Antonoff After Split
Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff attend the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Party on February 11, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Broadimage/Shutterstock

Eventually, Dunham came to terms with her behavior and decided to focus on herself. “I’d just had a hysterectomy, I’d broken up with my boyfriend, I was in the process of breaking up with my business partner [Jenni Konner] — I had no business buying a pair of shoes, [let alone] getting engaged,” she explained to the magazine. “Then I just went, ‘You know what? I’ve been dating since I was 15 years old. I’m allowed to take a break.’”

The New York native noted that “sobriety,” in her case, is “more than just not doing drugs.” She said that it also means she needs to “abstain from negative relationships” and take “a hiatus from dating.” Dunham has been “totally single” for 14 months and regards the change of pace as “amazing.”

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This past March, Dunham wrote an essay for Vogue that detailed her experience with “rebound romances” following her breakup with the Bleachers singer. She admitted that she “was lonely as hell” following her “near-miss of marriage” when she decided to give a new man a try.

“After half a decade with the same person, I had returned to my dating life with the abandon of a grandma of 10 shopping duty-free,” she wrote. “I had missed all of this: the anxiety of constructing a new identity worth wanting, the jittery caffeine-high moments before the first kiss and an introduction to someone’s second personality, the one they have when lust is released.”

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