Last night, Lena Dunham appeared on Watch What Happens Live to promote her new HBO series, Camping, which debuts this weekend. For what it’s worth, critics say the show is not good. What’s interesting about Lena’s appearance on WWHL is that the biggest headlines are about Lena’s thoughts on Taylor Swift. Lena used to be part of Taylor’s squad, although I think the squad has been disbanded for the most part. Still, Lena and Taylor are still kind of friendly. So Lena had some thoughts about Taylor’s foray into politics and Tay’s love life. Some quotes from Lena:
On Taylor’s political move: “That was really amazing. I’m always proud of Taylor. Not only is she an amazing friend to me on a personal level, but she’s an amazing friend to lots of people in the world. She felt it was time for her to talk about politics, and I never judged her for considering that a private domain, but I think she chose a really, really powerful time to speak out and I’m so moved and honored to be her friend.”
Her least favorite Taylor Swift-boyfriend: “I want to do right by her on this question. My least favorite was Calvin Harris because I felt that he was petty in the public, and who needs to do that?”
“I never judged her for considering that a private domain,” yeah… but Lena did judge her a bit. Still, Lena isn’t wrong – it was an important moment for Taylor to speak out, and she maximized it. As for what Lena says about Calvin Harris… yeah, no. He wasn’t “petty,” Taylor was trying to burn him post-breakup and he stood up for himself. Taylor has several songs about Calvin in Reputation too, how is that not equally petty?
Lena also named Daniel Tosh as her pick for the “biggest misogynist in Hollywood.” I feel that.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WWHL.
Taylor Swift spoke about voter registration, like millions before her, and people act like she invented voting.
How does it feel to be a blonde whte woman and get ACCOLADES for doing the bare minimum?
No good deed goes unpunished.
@Gray Because she rarely, if ever speaks in public, on a personal level, or engages with politics. It’s the rarity value: adds to the mystique/social worth (alas).
Well, she inspired a lot of people to get registered. Maybe it was the bare minimum, but she made a difference.
I’m glad Swift spoke up, but she absolutely waited until she had nothing at all to lose to do so. Nothing brave to see here.
Of course she still has things to lose, plenty have people has spoken against her which translate to fewer record sales in the future.
Nothing is ever good enough for some people. What do you care if Taylor Swift is getting positive attention for doing something positive? And she didn’t do the bare minimum, she gave a quality statement on something extremely important, which a lot of people aren’t doing. What Taylor did was and is helpful, your nitpicking and shallow disappointment isn’t.
Thank you. And I’d guess that the Kavanaugh fiasco was a big part of why she spoke out, being a sexual assault victim herself. Good for her if that’s the case, but it really does show that so many white ‘feminists’ (really, privileged white women in general) just don’t care/don’t want to speak up about politics and human rights issues unless they can relate on a personal level.
Voter turnout is pathetically low in this country. I am all for ANYONE who can get people to care. We all should applaud anyone who does this, regardless of their race or hair color.
Pettiness is par for the course for Swifty. Her exes are supposed to shut the fuck up and compliment her while she makes basic pop songs about how much they suck. I am OK with Calvin being petty as hell. Swifty deserves some of the pettiest exes of all time.
Harry wrote basic songs about Taylor too and Calvin was a petty ass to Rita ora too its not like he’s some innocent little boy.
No fan of Taylor but I love how the received wisdom is that only she is petty while the men’s pettiness are excused. The biggest fights she’s had has been men who are petty AF like Calvin and Kanye.
The thing with Taylor isn’t that she wrote songs about the guys she’s dated. It’s that she put Easter eggs in her songs, videos, linear notes to spell out what song is for what bf. That’s obnoxious, that’s petty. She created this reputation of hers, by talking badly about Joe Jonas, Harry Styles, John Meyer, etc, and then gets upset when people call her out on it and criticize her for it. It’s not the song writing necessarily, but the breadcrumbs of these relationships that lasted two months max (besides Calvin and the current beau). It’s a pattern she started.
And Kanye is petty, and sucks so badly. But Taylor was in the wrong for that, no matter how grossly MAGA he is now.
Never said Calvin is innocent and I don’t know why the hell you even brought up Kanye. I am talking about Taylor’s classic ‘woe is me’ cycle. I am not into it. Another thing I am not into is people trying to ‘out-woke’ me by lazy whataboutisms about things I have never implied. Calvin and Taytay were petty match made in heaven. I will stand by that.
Redtop: . I kinda get what your saying. But I am not going to feel sorry for grown ass men in their 30s who choose to date her like Hiddleston, Calvin and John Mayer. Mayer was almost 15 years older, she was 19, the man is known to treat women badly. And he’s not exactly discrete himself, the way he talked about Jessica simphson was humiliating and he was a dick to Anniston publically too
I agree about Harry and joe to an extent but if you don’t think Harry and the 1D machine used Taylor to help give 1D publicity in the USA you are delusional. Harry was notorious for stepping out with some famous woman or other just at the time when they had something to promote. He’s still does that, and even writing suggestive songs about Taylor even on his last album like 5 years after they broke up. But he gets a pass because he’s an attractive white male. The point is Taylor uses her romances to sell records and whatever but so did most of those men.
Nova:
Relax nobody is trying to “out woke” you. All I am saying is most of the guys who dated her was more than happy to go on pap walks, bring her home to mom for publicity and a number of them are petty AF too. And I stand by my point that men are given an easier time by women than other women.
Could this poor girl be any more unattractive? Bless her.
@ MopTop : I agree but must add that she cleaned up nice For WWHL. I didn’t recognize her.
I think she can look great but its like she purposly try to look bad sometimes
Umm… excuse me?! Can we not cut women down on their looks moptop et al? How superficial. Go crawl back under your rock with Melania. What happened to empowering women?
Can we please stop mocking Lena’s style and most importantly her physical appearance? If you don’t like her ideas fine, but people really go at her for something she is not entirely responsible of or for daring to like clothes that “do her no favours”. Then one wonders why people use plastic surgery. And it’s the second time I write this today. Honestly, it’s tiring to read people mean girling others.
Because Taylor is never petty, only her ex-boyfriends and the people, like me, who feels she ruined Tom Hiddleston.
She didn’t “RUIN” Tom Hiddleston, at all! He was doing fine before her, and he’s doing fine now. Has he become more private about his life? Sure! Did she magically take away his amazing acting abilities and shrivel him up?!? GOD NO! He’s still a great actor!! And an awesome person. He’s lost nothing.
@Nikki I didn’t meant ruined in this way. To me, he just got less hot after the whole mess for publicity that he inserted himself in, the “pap” shots in the beach and the “pap” shots after she met his mom, that’s all.
I don’t remember seeing a gun to his head in those pap shots.
He tried something, it backfired.
He’s moved on.
I would not use up my concern quota over the Hiddlestons of the world…
Can we nor pretend Hiddleston is a child? The man is pushing 40 and people act like he’s a poor little boy who got lead on by big bad woman who happens to be 10 years younger than him
Her current boyfriend is like much younger and manages to do the bare minimum, even Calvin didn’t go full AW when he was with her. Personally I think Hiddleston was used as a distraction and was mainly a PR romance at least for her, but he’s a grown ass man and nobody forced him to do that pap tour.
He did that all of his own accord. Heard that straight from his former publicist’s mouth, he was very difficult to manage pr wise. He’s learned though.
I think hiddleston was the perfect guy willing to be in that public of a relationship-hes a ham, loves attention. Taylor picked well since that was her goal-two pretty white people dressed up walking around rome-‘this’ll distract you from my bad press, right?’
He’s 36 or 37. Point is, don’t already start throwing him into the 40s category just cause he has a more mature stature (looks and style) than her other boyfriends. Swifty fans are terribly ageist. To them people in their forties may as well be 50.
One of the writers on Camping is Travon Free, who has an excellent Instagram feed. FWIW, he is a bisexual former athlete.
I can’t stand Lena, but she’s rigjt sbout Daniel Tosh. He’s racist, too.
Calvin Harris is a misogynistic culture vulture.
I just want to…take Lena shopping and have a SERIOUS discussion on how to dress…and do hair and makeup…cause I too am a big girl…and EVERYTHING that she usually wears…is SO WRONG…and we are FINALLY living in an age where fashions exists for women our size…that is SO RIGHT! Though, I TRULY think that she looks good here…the bangs soften her face…and the makeup is ON POINT! The only issue I have with her here is that she needs a better bra…and she needs foundation that makes her SIT UP…and not slouch…her posture needs to be on point…so that she doesn’t look like she’s a marshmallow….
Lala…. You are much too nice. All I would want to go shopping with her… would be for a private island in the middle of the Pacific were she could sit on for the rest of her life.
Doesn’t anyone remember his music ban on Rita Ora? He wouldn’t let her perform any of the music they collaborated on for almost three years. THAT is petty.
This Is What You Came For is one of his biggest hits and TS had a hand in it. Can you imagine if TS had banned him from performing it? I think it was one of if not the biggest hits that year.
TBH, I can’t blame him that much for what he did to Rita. She cheated on him. If my boyfriend cheated on me, I would probably be petty enough to not allow him to release the music I worked on.
+1 Crumbs!
Ten bucks says Taylor Swift hasn’t even talked to Lena in at least a year, and Lena is just using the illusion that they might still be squadmates to hitch her sad little train to someone else’s glory.
If you don’t recognize that Calvin Harris is just as petty as Taylor Swift, but has way less of a keg to stand on, I don’t know what world you’re in …
I came to say that maybe my memory is jumbled but I seem to remember that Taylor stayed mum after their breakup and HIS team started writing the narrative for the breakup and THEN there was the copyright mess.
She’s not perfect but I would not have taken it lying down either.
Especially since people have already pegged her as “petty”.
No her team released a statement criticizing calvin for not crediting her publicly for cowriting one of his songs-then he responded saying they both agreed beforehand for her to be given songwriting credits with a fake name
Calvin acted exactly like Taylor acted after every single one of her previous relationships tho. Only difference was that he called out her by name instead of making songs with hidden messages
Taylor is the Queen of Petty though. Still can’t forget the way she slut-shamed Camilla Belle with that mattress lyric…and didn’t even bother apologizing to her years later when she admitted that it wasn’t the nicest song.
I guess to be friends with twift you have to be a hypocrite?
Taylor got 65,000 people out to register and vote. No matter her agenda 65,000 votes matter.
Why do Taylor Swift’s fans speak out negatively about her exes? It’s like Taylor Swift and her friends feel the need to talk shit about others. How about no comment next time that kind of question is asked Lena.
So I guess we’re all forgetting that Lena released a statement calling a sexual assault victim a liar because her friend of almost “half a decade” was the accused. I don’t care about her opinion.