The Girls creator and star was among the former Secretary of State’s many celebrity supporters, who had campaigned for the Democrat in the lead-up to her face-off with Republican Donald Trump on Election Day.
Like millions of Americans who believed frontrunner Hillary would win the race to the White House, Lena was left devastated upon learning the results – and realising Trump would be the 45th President of the United States.
In a candid essay for her Lenny Letter email subscribers, titled with the Florynce Kennedy quote, “Don’t Agonize, Organize”, she describes how she had started the “perfect day” feeling like a bride on her wedding day, and had later joined her boyfriend, fun. rocker Jack Antonoff, at the Javits Center in New York, where Hillary and her supporters had been expecting to celebrate her victory.
As the crowd watched the votes roll in on the news in the early hours of Wednesday (09Nov16) and Trump’s win started to become a reality, Lena reveals she broke down in tears and developed a rash.
Admitting her recollection of the night is “blurred and spotty”, she writes, “At a certain point it became clear something had gone horribly wrong. Celebrants’ faces turned. The modeling had been incorrect. Watching the numbers in Florida, I touched my face and realized I was crying. ‘Can we please go home?’ I said to my boyfriend.
“I could tell he was having trouble breathing, and I could feel my chin breaking into hives.”
The distraught couple left the event, and at home in Brooklyn, the stars struggled to digest what had just happened.
“At home I got in the shower and began to cry even harder,” she recalls. “My boyfriend, who had already wept, watched me as I mumbled incoherently, clutching myself. ‘It wasn’t supposed to go this way. It was supposed to be her job. She worked her whole life for the job. It’s her job.'”
Lena goes on to admit she “never truly believed” Trump could win, and recalls how she had endured threats and abuse as she campaigned for Hillary in the lead-up to the election.
She even claims her phone was hacked, while she was branded a “fat w**re” and a “retard”, among other insults, as some went as far as to declare she should be killed.
Despite the heartache, Lena insists she, and other Americans like her, should recognise it’s “a privilege to be heartbroken by the system for the first time at age 30”, as so many others have faced oppression for years.
And while she will continue to grieve the loss for another couple of days, Lena is determined to use her voice to fight against the “hideous” rhetoric Trump had claimed victory with, after making offensive statements about women, illegal Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, and Muslims.
She also thanks Hillary for her lifetime of public service, and defiantly concludes: “We will not be governed by fear. We will show our children a different way. We will go home like shooting stars.”
