Perpetual self-sabotage machine Lena Dunham and songwriter to the stars Jack Antonoff ended their five-year relationship recently, E! News exclusively reported on Monday. Though the two were a perfectly emblematic millennial couple, the announcement of their split would not have been a surprise to anyone who spends their free time reading the tea leaves laid out by celebrities on social media. Dunham last appeared on Antonoff’s Instagram in April of last year, commemorating their anniversary; Dunham posted a photo of the two together back in October, but based on various paparazzi services, they were last photographed together at JFK airport in New York in July (a boring day Dunham tweeted about at the time).
In any event, Us Weekly followed up E!’s story with one of their own stating that Antonoff is already seeing someone new. If you go to their story now, you will see this:
Moving on. Jack Antonoff is already seeing someone else after his recent split from girlfriend of five years, Lena Dunham a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.
“The relationship is done and he has moved on … as in he is seeing someone else,” an insider tells Us.
The information provided is pretty basic: Antonoff has a new girlfriend, but nobody feels like saying who quite yet. But this is different from how the Us story looked when it was first posted. If you look at the Google cache version of the story, you’ll notice this (bolding ours):
“The relationship is done and he has moved on … as in he is seeing someone else,” an insider tells Us, adding that his new love is a musician.
That Antonoff is dating a musician wouldn’t be a huge surprise either, but the deletion is curious, a sort of very minor version of the Streisand effect. (The Daily Mail has continued to link to the story while reporting that Antonoff is seeing a musician.) Us may have deleted the line because it was wrong, but gossip rags play fast and loose with rumors by definition; it’s more likely that the item instead revealed a little too much, and pressure was applied to cull it.
So who is Antonoff dating? He worked extensively with women in 2017, producing most if not entire albums by Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, and Lorde. Swift is booed up and St. Vincent is gay; that would leave Lorde, which, hey, who’s to say. There are of course one million other musicians out there who Jack Antonoff could be dating. It will make for good art! (Maybe.)
