Lena Dunham's body is her business.
When the Girls creator stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show Wednesday, she discussed the backlash she received over her appearance at a Tracy Anderson Method event last week. "You look fantastic. You look really good," host Ellen DeGeneres told the 30-year-old TV star. "You always look great, but I know that you got a lot of flack for losing weight, which is ridiculous."
Dunham couldn't agree more.
"It's just so crazy because I spent six years of my career being called things like 'bag of milk' on the internet—'bag of milk,' 'baby cow,' 'aging cow.' I just never felt self-conscious about it. I was like, 'Anyone who is going to take the time to say something negative about my weight on the internet isn't someone I was particularly keen to impress anyway.' Then I had this experience of my body changing. Suddenly I got all these people saying, 'You're a hypocrite. I thought you were body positive. I thought you were a person who embraced body types of all sizes,'" Dunham said. "I do. I just understand that bodies change. We live a long time. Things happen."
To prove her point, Dunham joked that her Girls co-star Andrew Rannells "could get very fat. We just don't know!" Humor aside, Dunham told DeGeneres she was "frustrated" by the focus on her appearance. "It really was evidence that as a woman in Hollywood, you just can't win."
Dunham first addressed the backlash last week via Instagram.
"I feel I've made it pretty clear over the years that I don't give even the tiniest of s--ts what anyone else feels about my body. I've gone on red carpets in couture as a size 14. I've done sex scenes days after surgery, mottled with scars," Dunham wrote. "I've accepted that my body is an ever changing organism, not a fixed entity—what goes up must come down and vice versa."
Dunham added that she's "proud of what this body has seen and done and represented."
"Right now I'm struggling to control my endometriosis through a healthy diet and exercise," she told her 3 million followers. "So my weight loss isn't a triumph and it also isn't some sign I've finally given in to the voices of trolls. Because my body belongs to ME—at every phase, in every iteration, and whatever I'm doing with it, I'm not handing in my feminist card to anyone."
"I refuse to celebrate these bulls--t before-and-after pictures. Don't we have infinitely more pressing news to attend to?" the Golden Globe-winning actress continued. "So much love to all my web friends who demand that life be more than a daily weigh in, who know their merit has nothing to do with their size, who fight to be seen and heard and accepted. I love you."