Lena Dunham only just finished shooting the final episode of her hit HBO show Girls, but already she’s back in front of the camera. Her three new co-stars? DJ Envy, Angela Yee, and Charlamagne Tha God. Dunham’s appearance on The Breakfast Club this morning was somewhat unexpected, but not totally inexplicable. She’s a big of Brandy’s tearful 2012 interview — admittedly, more of a fan than Brandy was herself — and Charlamagne is himself quite familiar with both Girls and her 2010 debut Tiny Furniture. Over 40 minutes, Lena and the hosts discuss intersectional feminism, the dichotomy between being a feminist and wanting to be seen as sexy, Girls‘ lack of diversity, and Lena’s controversial comments about Odell Beckham Jr. after the two were seated together at the Met Gala.
Some of her most introspective remarks come when addressing Odell. The Girls star has since admitted her mistake in projecting her own insecurities onto the athlete after he chose to focus on his iPhone instead of body while the two were seated together, and now thanks the people who pointed out the real implications of her unfair accusations. “I was unintentionally perpetuating the stereotype of a black man as someone who will holler at anything that’s near him,” Lena says. “Especially at this moment in history, we have to be hyper-vigilant of how we depict each other.” She’s not dismissive of Charlamagne’s criticism that Girls ignores women of color, saying that she didn’t want to be a young white woman in Brooklyn telling a young black woman in Brooklyn’s story, but would like to collaborate with more women of color in the future. “White feminists do not have a great history of carrying their black sisters along with them,” she adds, and acknowledges that there are important issues that, as a white person, she’s lucky enough to not have to consider.
Watch the full interview — which also touches upon Kim Kardashian’s robbery, Hillary Clinton’s policies, quitting Twitter, and why she sometimes wants dudes to check out her butt in the street — below.
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Text Hannah Ongley