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Famesick by Lena Dunham review – when celebrity causes side-effects

The Girls creator has endured brickbats and breakdowns – but she doesn’t always make it easy to feel sorry for her

At the end of last year, Netflix released Too Much – a sickly, indie-sleaze romcom about an American transplant who falls for a troubled British muso. It was created by Lena Dunham and her musician husband Luis Felber, and apparently loosely based on the couple’s backstory. It felt, to many critics, like second-screen fare, decidedly Lena Dunham-lite. Was this really the same person who had given us the spiky, self-absorbed world of Girls, the millennial Sex and the City complete with brutal situationships, toxic besties and, er, one of the main characters accidentally smoking crack?

Famesick sheds almost all the Richard Curtis-isms to find that old, controversy-courting Dunham alive and – if not exactly well – then learning to cope with it. Her second memoir (Not That Kind of Girl was published in 2014) charts the chronic illness and seemingly unending stress that came to define her 20s and 30s after she had snagged her own HBO series aged just 24. The afflictions described across its 400 pages include – though are not limited to – OCD, colitis, the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, endometriosis, early menopause, PTSD and addiction to both opioids and benzodiazepines. At one point, Dunham accidentally sets herself on fire; at another, she panics about how Vogue will cover up the impetigo on her face, “a waterfall of golden blisters, turning a sickly green as they dried”. The book is scattergun and sometimes lacking in self awareness (who cares that Dunham had to give her designer booties up, like contraband, when she entered rehab?). It’s also undeniably frank and exhaustive: a lifetime of therapy condensed into something you could conceivably rip through in a weekend.

2026-04-27 08:00:38

Elon Musk and Sam Altman face off in court over OpenAI’s founding mission

Musk’s lawsuit accuses Altman of fraud, while OpenAI says that Musk is ‘motivated by jealousy’

A lawsuit between two of Silicon Valley’s biggest tycoons goes to trial Monday in California, the culmination of a years-long bitter feud. Elon Musk has accused Sam Altman of betraying the founding agreement of the non-profit they started together, OpenAI, by changing it to a for-profit enterprise.

Musk accuses Altman, OpenAI, its president Greg Brockman, and its major partner Microsoft of breach of contract and unjust enrichment in the lawsuit. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning at a federal courthouse in Oakland, with opening arguments from both sides expected later this week. The trial is slated to last two to three weeks. Along with internal communications from Musk and key executives at OpenAI, the trial promises a who’s who of Silicon Valley on the witness stand, including Musk, Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

2026-04-27 08:00:38

ClickHole

Because All Content Deserves To Go Viral.

Close, But No Cigar: The Butterflies Mom Thinks Are A Sign That Grandpa Wants Her To Know He’s In A Better Place Are Actually Signs That The Late John McCain Wants Her To Kill For Him

Brace yourself, because this is a story about a misunderstanding that’s as embarrassing as they come: The butterflies Mom thinks are a sign that Grandpa wants her to know he’s in a better place are actually signs that the late John McCain wants her to kill for him.

Close but no cigar, Mom. Right butterflies, wrong dead guy.

Ever since Grandpa died in 2018, Mom has interpreted every butterfly she’s seen in her garden or out and about as a message from Grandpa, who she thinks is trying to tell her that he made it to heaven, was reunited with Grandma, and is now experiencing the peace of God’s love. Somehow, she’s totally clueless to the fact that the butterflies are in fact desperate missives from deceased US Senator John McCain, with meanings ranging from “Kill Donald Trump,” to “Kill Melania Trump,” to “Go to Hollywood and strangle Whoopi Goldberg. Make it look like an accident.” It’s unclear why John McCain targeted Mom in particular for these missions—maybe he just thinks she’s a competent lady, or that no one would suspect her as an assassin—but whatever the reason, he’s been trying to get through to her with no luck for upwards of seven years.

Just last Mother’s Day, Mom saw four different butterflies at our family picnic, and she was 100% convinced it meant that Grandpa wanted her to know she’s a great mother to her four kids. If only she’d been more tuned in to the messages of the universe, she would have known that Mother’s Day 2025 was the day John McCain was hoping to eliminate both Michelle and Barack Obama, Malia Obama, and a guy from his neighborhood who once dented his car and didn’t leave a note. The butterflies were supposed to scream, “Today is the day to spill blood in my honor, Kelly. Today is the day of reckoning,” but for Mom, they were nothing more than a heartwarming message from her late father.

Damn. Mom is seriously blind and deaf to the messages she’s getting from the beyond. John McCain needs lots of people killed, and it looks like Mom is never gonna do it. All because she’s fixated on stupid Grandpa. Keep sending butterflies, John, and maybe she’ll wise up!

2026-04-27 08:00:31