Lena Dunham apologizes again for defending accused rapist: 'I did something inexcusable'

Lena Dunham.
(Image credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)

Another day, another Lena Dunham apology.

The Girls creator published an essay in The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday focused on her defense of a Girls writer and producer who was accused of rape. Last year, actress Aurora Perrineau alleged that Murray Miller raped her in 2012 when she was 17 and he was 35, The Wrap reported at the time. She filed a police report but Miller, who denied the allegation, was ultimately not charged. When the report first surfaced, Dunham released a statement standing behind Miller and suggesting she knew the accusation wasn't true because of "insider information" she had, per Variety.

But in her Wednesday essay, Dunham admitted she never had any insider information at all. Instead, she had "blind faith in a story that kept slipping and changing and revealed itself to mean nothing at all." Dunham says defending Miller, someone she "had loved as a brother," was "inexcusable," adding, "There are few acts I could ever regret more in this life." She released her statement coming from a place of wanting to "feel my workplace and my world were safe," she says, which was "a privilege in and of itself."

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Dunham had previously apologized for her defense of Miller and said in an interview with The Cut last month that she wrote her statement while "high as a f---ing kite" recovering from surgery.

Speaking directly to Perrineau, Dunham writes that she will "always work to right that wrong," also thanking the actress for making her "a better woman and a better feminist." Read the full essay at The Hollywood Reporter.

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.