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Lena Dunham reveals the heartwarming reason she refuses to get the ‘perfect Hollywood smile’

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PHOTO: Getty Images/ Gallo Images
PHOTO: Getty Images/ Gallo Images

Lena Dunham has penned a revealing essay about why she won’t be getting the ‘perfect Hollywood mega-watt smile’ anytime soon, despite being advised to do so by her publicist.

In the Vogue essay, the 31-year-old referred to her teeth as “cartoonish and mismatched,” saying that they gave her a jankity [crooked] smile which made her look like a “habitual meth user.”

Lena said that she was self-conscious about what people said about her teeth in the past and initially researched the process of teeth whitening when her former publicist once asked her creative partner to broach the subject with her.

Initially she felt open to the idea, and even spoke to a Manhattan-based dentist to find out more about cosmetic dentistry.

And while the Girls creator and star had felt hesitation towards teeth whitening in the past, she made an appointment.

“Soon you’ll barely recognise me. I’ll be the Sandra Bullock of this office!” she remembers bragging to co-workers.

But when a friend warned her about how painful teeth whitening can be, she cancelled her appointment and started to explore whether pearly whites would suit her personality. 

“What if the whiteness of my new teeth doesn’t match the rest of my face – freckled, uneven, and often make-up free?

“And, perhaps most pressing, how good will this really make me feel?” she wrote.

The realisation that she didn’t want to change herself only came when she was walking around the streets of Brooklyn.

“In that moment, I feel deeply that it is our differences that unite us; that it is the strange details of our faces that make us so totally human,” she wrote.

“If the mouth is a third window to the soul, then I want mine to look like someone has punched their way through it in a mad rage.”

She concluded that she was content with her teeth growing more “dingy by the day, on my terms”.

“I’ll continue: beaver-toothed, yellowed, enraging the internet one post at a time with a smile only a mother could love.”

While Lena’s piece was met with a lot of resistance, some reassured her that her teeth are what makes her unique.  

Source: Vogue, Daily Mail, AOL

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