On Friday, Lena Dunham’s weekly Lenny Letter email newsletter featured an extensive interview with Amy Schumer. The wide-ranging chat touched on Schumer auditioning for Dunham’s Girls, that whole Kurt Metzger thing, and Schumer’s efforts to push for stricter gun control, but one part of the discussion has attracted quite a bit of controversy—and not just the usual controversy that gets stirred up whenever Lena Dunham does anything. While talking with Schumer about how uncomfortable the two of them felt while attending the Met Gala in New York, Dunham explained what it was like sitting by New York Giants player Odell Beckham Jr.:
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. 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 fuck it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone.” 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.”
Dunham has now apologized for those comments in an Instagram post, explaining that she made “narcissistic assumptions” about him without knowing “his state of mind.” She says the whole thing came from her “insecurities” and that she “[feels] terrible about it,” adding the she now realizes it’s “unfair” to “ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone” she doesn’t know.