NEW YORK — Saying she would “show every last one of you bitches that I’m capable of sinking this ship,” an unhinged Lena Dunham waved a bottle of diet pills in front of a gathering of terrified HBO executives.
Dunham is the star and creator of HBO’s hit series “Girls,” which has been praised for its realism and honest depictions of women’s bodies. She claims the network denies her the artistic freedom she requires as the show’s head writer and occasional director.
Sources say Dunham is demanding the network air a scene in which her character Hannah is defecating in a funeral home parking lot when she spots an ex-boyfriend snorting cocaine on a nearby park bench graffitied with the number eight, prompting the OCD-afflicted Hannah to have unprotected public sex with him exactly eight times, despite the fact she’s menstruating and supposed to be delivering a eulogy.
“I’ll show the nitty-gritty reality of being a modern female with a $200,000 bachelor’s degree from Oberlin if I want to,” Dunham was reported to have shouted before locking the conference room door at HBO’s Midtown headquarters. “I swear, I’ll lose 15 pounds and nobody will watch this damn show anymore.”
This is the third time Dunham has threatened to ameliorate her appearance if the network didn’t greenlight her material. In the first case, she vowed to get breast implants if she couldn’t shoot a scene in which Hannah’s boyfriend Adam urinates on her. The second case was when Dunham said she would get her faded tattoos removed if she was not allowed to show Adam raping and ejaculating on his new girlfriend.