Inside Taylor Swift's friendship with Lena Dunham (2024)

Taylor Swift is making the most of her time in the UK while she prepares for her next weekend of Eras shows as she caught up with her long-standing friend Lena Dunham on Tuesday night.

The pair were seen heading toArgentinean restaurant Casa Cruz in Notting Hill alongside a new posse of girlfriends including Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, and Phoebe Waller Bridge.

However her old palLena Dunham, who lives in London, also joined the party as the pair caught up after over a decade of friendship.

The duo's sisterhood began online back in 2012 when Lena first tweeted about how important the songstress' music was to her.

Praising the artist, she wrote: 'Judging by how much she's helped me thus far, Taylor Swift is going to write the song that finally gets me comfortable with death.'

Later that year in October, after the release of Taylor's album Red, Lena took to Twitter once again as she penned: 'Update: @taylorswif3's album is triumphant. If she'd been here when I was in college I would have written papers on her, not Sylvia Plath'.

Overjoyed at her compliment, Taylor instantly replied as she raved about Lena's comedy series Girls.

She replied: '@lenadunham, you made my day with that. I'm now going to sit in my dressing room reciting my fav @girlsHBO quotes.. Which is all of them.'

After Taylor decided to take the jump and followed Lena, it wasn't long before the director replied and the friendship began.

Scrolling back to the pair's first ever messages during an interview with Rolling Stone, Taylor revealed Lena's first message to her read: 'I am so excited about the prospect of being friends with you that I added the adjective best in front of it.’

The pair were seen cuddling up together at the Grammy's in 2013, at the time when Lena was dating Taylor's now producer Jack Antonoff.

In 2015, the star appeared in Taylor's Bad Blood video which saw the star recruit her famous pack of girlfriend's for her hit single with Kendrick Lamar.

Lena joined Hailee Steinfield, Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez and Hayley Williams, to name a few, as they embraced their inner fighters for the catchy hit.

She later joined Taylor on stage for a performance at New Jersey’s iconic MetLife Stadium in July of that year as they brought the iconic video to life.

While Taylor is known for her string of exes that often provide inspiration for her music, Lena defended her friend's dating history.

Coming to Taylor's defence on the Howard Stern show back in 2017 she explained: 'I think that young woman…it's so hard.

'I think about the relationships that I had in my early twenties and if they had been public, it would've been a disaster,' she continued.

'And also, I mean, not to repeat age-old feminist points, but it's like you know, any male actor her age who's going out and dating is applauded and to just have a perfectly normal amount of romantic partners but to be held to impossibly high standards by the press, like it's just an unfair and unwinnable game.'

The pair have also been very vocal with their love for each other online, after Lena penned a gushing message to the star back in 2018.

Sharing a selfie of them both after Taylor's show at theRose Bowl in California, she wrote: 'This is a love note to @taylorswift.I was a fan before I was a friend and her music formed the soundtrack to so much love & loss & discovery - late nights writing and early mornings weepy on the way to work.'

She added: 'She had perfectly distilled the feeling of growing into yourself. When we became friends 6 years ago I didn't know she'd also prove to be the loyal and hilarious cat lady who loved me through every rough moment and the triumphant ones too.'

'Tonight I was just a fan again, one of 60k who got our souls rocked by her artistry, her open heart and her killer gams. Love you forever, Tay,' she added.

In 2021, Taylor had the honour of serving as one of Lena's bridesmaids at her wedding to husband Luis Felber at Soho's Union Club in London.

Getting married after the COVID lockdown, Taylor was one of nine bridesmaids as Lena confessed she hadn't seen some of her friends in over a year due to the pandemic.

She explained: 'I spent so much time during the pandemic talking to my girlfriends about our feelings over FaceTime, but a few of my best friends I haven't seen in over a year.

'And, you know, my girlfriends have had to deal with a lot of not-so-happy things with me in our adulthood, so to be able to celebrate something joyful and use it as an excuse to be together was very special.'