Breitbart wants to hear from Lena Dunham and doesn’t appreciate her team’s continued silence over the identity of a man who she says sexually assaulted her in college.
In her memoir Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham wrote that during her time at Oberlin College, she was sexually assaulted by a man named Barry, who she identified as a mustachioed campus Republican. According to Breitbart, the word “rape” later came up during a Howard Stern interview and Dunham agreed with the term when posed.
In addition to the name Barry, the noted facial hair and his political affiliation, Dunham’s book includes other highly specific character traits, including his having a very deep voice, hosting a radio show and owning a pair of purple cowboy boots. The book details the person in question inserting his fingers in her vagina at one point without consent, and later removing a condom twice without consent during a particularly rough sexual encounter.
Breitbart, a known-conservative news blog, went to great lengths to either disprove the existence of such a man, or find him — depending on whom you ask. The website published a lengthy investigative report Thursday, in which it claims to have left no stone unturned, but couldn’t find anyone fitting the highly specific description of the alleged sexual assaulter.
“In the end, Breitbart News could not find a Republican named Barry who attended Oberlin during Dunham’s time there who came anywhere close to matching her description of him,” reporter John Nolte wrote. “In fact, we could not find anyone who remembered any Oberlin Republican who matched Dunham’s colorful description.”
However, setting aside the more “colorful” character traits, Breitbart found a man who fits the bones of the description, whom Nolte feels is being unfairly accused. Breitbart has dubbed the man “Barry One.”
“Anyone with half a brain and access to Google has already discovered that, during Dunham’s time at Oberlin College, there was a prominent Republican named Barry who was politically active and quite well-known,” Nolte penned.
A legal defense fund per gofundme has been opened to raise money and clear the so-called “Barry One’s” name through the court system. At the time of this writing, the campaign has raised $22,115 out of its $100,000 goal.
In the original post from last week, Nolte dispels the possibility that Dunham’s use of the name “Barry” could have been a pseudonym, as she did not specify nor use quotes. At another part in her memoir, Dunham does specify when changing a party’s name, Nolte wrote.
Part of Breitbart’s beef comes from the fact that Dunham has had several opportunities to publicly address and possible clarify her book’s accusations, but she has not done so.
Dunham’s reps did not immediately respond to TheWrap‘s requests for comment.