Donald Glover Was Just Kidding About Lena Dunham Saying The N-Word In Front Of Him
Lena Dunham has burped up so much messiness that when Donald Glover joked about her using the N-word recently, everyone immediately believed him. But believe it or not, both Lena and Donald deny the N-word ever slipped out of her mouth in his presence. See, this is why you gotta be careful who you make jokes about–if he made a joke about Lena being tolerable, maybe we’d easily understand he was kidding.
Lena and Donald go back to when he guest-starred on her show Girls. At the time, Girls was rightfully getting dragged for its lack of diversity in the NYC-based show. During his guest spot, Donald did an improvised takedown of white women. Lena–who has admitted to “huge blind spots” in the show–wrote to him afterward saying she hoped she didn’t tokenize him on the show, and he was quite generous and cryptic in his non-reply. So they go back, and this weekend at the 75th Writers Guild of America Awards, Donald made a little jokey-joke at Lena’s expense while presenting his show Atlanta‘s executive producer, Paul Simms, with the Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence, via Los Angeles Times:
During the bit, Glover recalled working with Dunham on the set of the HBO series Girls, in which his character dated Dunham’s character. Glover said he asked Dunham for her take on Simms, who produced Girls and later produced Glover’s FX show, Atlanta.
“I asked Lena … “Hey, what made you decide to work with Paul?’ And she goes, “Honestly, this n— let’s me do whatever I want,”” Glover said, drawing sparse laughter from the room.
He added: “I remember thinking two things: One, Lena is using the N-word extremely liberal with me. Who does she think she is, Chevy Chase? … And two, that’s the kind of producer I want.”
Here’s the moment:
here is Donald Glover presenting an honorary award to Paul Simms and talking about Lena Dunham saying the n-word pic.twitter.com/QNaJki8cei
— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) March 6, 2023
I could tell he was joking, but some didn’t. So both Lena and Donald’s people had to clarify that Donald was JK:
“Donald Glover told a joke referencing Lena Dunham for last night’s WGA Awards,” a representative for Dunham told The Times on Monday in a statement. “It included, for effect, language Lena never used, nor would use.”
A representative for Glover confirmed in an email to The Times that Glover’s joke was indeed exactly that.
See, comedy isn’t dead–you just have to clarify you’re sometimes joking. At least Donald stated he was just joking before Lena’s friends had to come to her defense. The last time one of her black friends defended her, playwright Jeremy O. Harris, he got roasted to Hell and back, sweetie. He wasn’t gonna fly to her rescue twice–not for an N-word!
Pics: Darla Khazei/DDP/INSTARimages/Cover Images