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Lena Dunham Quits Twitter: “It Wasn’t a Safe Space for Me… It Creates Cancerous Stuff Inside You”

Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham opened up about quitting Twitter after nonstop "verbal abuse."

Don’t expect Lena Dunham to be typing in 140 characters anymore. The Girls creator and star, 29, doesn’t even know her own Twitter password these days. During a podcast with Re/code Decode, the Lenny Letter founder talked about her views on social media. 

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“I don’t look at Twitter anymore,” she said. “I tweet, but I do it through someone else… It truly wasn’t a safe space for me. I think even if you think you can separate yourself from the kind of verbal violence that’s being directed at you, that it creates some really kind of cancerous stuff inside you. Even if you think, 'Oh I can read like 10 mentions that say I should be stoned to death.' That’s verbal abuse.”

The HBO star admitted that she still mans her own Instagram account, calling it a “more positive community,” but explained that she had to take down one image of her wearing her boyfriend Jack Antonoff’s underwear because the comments became so intense. 

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“It wasn’t a graphic picture — I was wearing men’s boxers,” she said. “And it turned into the most rabid, disgusting debate about women’s bodies, and my Instagram page was somehow the hub for misogynists for the afternoon.” 

She also compared reading sites like Gawker and Jezebel to “going back to a husband who beat me in the face — it doesn’t make any sense.” 

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Dunham later apologized to fans for her comments about Gawker and Jezebel via Instagram, writing, “When I heard my own quote I was like "Jesus, Lena, no." I wasn't making a joke about domestic violence–I was over emphatic in my attempt to capture how damaging the Internet can be (not just to celebrities.)… I'm not the first to say it. I shan't be the last. But I regret that earlier comparison because it doesn't accurately describe the condition of being attacked online AND it appears to make light of domestic violence, which ain't my style.”

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