Lena Dunham is mad as hell and she’s not going to take it anymore, US Magazine. Last week’s US cover (last week, not this, the current week’s, cover) featured 20 Slimdown Diet Tips Stars are Using. As you can see, there’s a candid picture of Lena alongside Christina El Moussa and Hilary Duff in bikinis and covermodel Julianne Hough in workout gear. I’m trying really hard to find something offensive about this cover but I can’t seem to do it. I don’t care for Christina’s bikini? That’s about all the scorn I can muster. But not Lena, she came after US for this horribly offensive photo of her in a cute dress and kicky ankle socks, daring to suggest they know how she motivates herself to look after her physical well-being. Those bastards!

It’s easier to read on her IG, if the block of text above is too much. To me it’s clear she is reacting to the House of Representatives passing the AHCA last week. Her own pre-exisiting conditions landed her in the hospital directly following the MET Gala. The phone hack to which she referred happened because she supports Hilary Clinton. The violent images were photos of dead fetuses and other graphic content to punish her for being a vocal supporter of Hillary’s. That’s awful and wrong in so many ways. Truly, I don’t find fault with her rant about healthcare, her medical condition and the despicable acts committed in the name of the current administration’s supporters. I can even sign off on using the #45 Diet Tips as a clever tie-in to provide a platform for her rant. But it’s the last “tip” that gets me. She objects to being associated with this cover and article because it’s the antithesis of everything she has worked for… except that she gave a quote to US. It’s unclear if she knew it was for this article, but she did give them a quote about exercise. Tip number 15 of 20:

Discover Your Purpose: After spending years as a self-described “schizophrenic exerciser,” Lena Dunham committed to a routine to help aid her anxiety. “Exercise is one of the best things you can do,” she tells Us, adding that strength training with Tracy Anderson, yoga with Beth Cooke and regular runs “make me feel like I can exist in this world.”

[From US Weekly, print edition]

Lena is mentioned one other time in the article, in the introduction when US says, “With beach season fast approaching, Us asked Hough, Lena Dunham and the pros who train them to share their body of wisdom.” They mentioned Lena’s exercise in relation to how it helps her anxiety, they said things like “wisdom” and used her quotes – what is she so ticked off about? To her credit, yes, Lena has made a very public stand about showing her body as it is and not some retouched version of her… unless it’s, say, Vogue doing the retouching. However, she’s not featured in a bikini – retouched or otherwise. She appears on the cover in a dress and at no point does the magazine suggest that she works out for any other reason than to attend to her heath, which, once again, was in her own words. Did they not tell her what the issue was about? Did she object to the word “Diet” so close to a photo of her? I am genuinely confused because many outlets are giving her an Atta Girl for these comments, which I feel is unfair to US. Will Lena claim, like she did with El Pais, that someone else signed off on her quote without her knowing it would be included in a diet issue? Maybe they used quotes from another interview with her and she truly had no idea they would be used in this article. If that’s true, why did she wait to come after them? And if this was all an excuse to complain about healthcare, why attack US? Lena does openly promote the fact that she works out with Tracy Anderson, so what did US do wrong?

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