Lena Dunham issued an apology to Odell Beckham Jr. just one day after she was criticized for suggesting the NFL star rejected her at the 2016 Met Ball.
"I owe Odell Beckham Jr an apology," theGirls creator, 30, wrote on Instagram on Saturday, September 3. "Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don't rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it's hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage."
She continued, "This felt especially intense with a handsome athlete as my dinner companion and a bunch of women I was sure he'd rather be seated with. But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts. I feel terrible about it."
As Ipresstv previously reported, Dunham faced backlash on Friday, September 2, after she relived her experience at the 2016 Met Ball in her Lenny Letter newsletter with comedienne Amy Schumer. The actress recounted, "[Odell] looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. … 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.'"
After sparking a social media firestorm (with many users accusing Dunham of reverse sexism and noting her white privilege), the self-proclaimed feminist added to her Instagram apology on Saturday: "Because after listening to lots of valid criticism, I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don't know AT ALL. Like, we have never met, I have no idea the kind of day he's having or what his truth is. But most importantly, I would never intentionally contribute to a long and often violent history of the over-sexualization of black male bodies- as well as false accusations by white women towards black men. I'm so sorry, particularly to OBJ, who has every right to be on his cell phone. The fact is I don't know about his state of mind (I don't know a lot of things) and I shouldn't have acted like I did."
The New York Giants wide receiver, 23, has yet to acknowledge Dunham's statements.
