Lena Dunham Reveals Allison Mack Invited Her to an NXIVM Meeting

While casting Girls, Lena Dunham says Smallville alum Allison Mack didn’t land a role but spent the next year emailing her weekly, urging her to join an intimate women’s group.

Lena Dunham just dropped a wild little footnote to early Girls lore: while she was casting the show, Allison Mack from Smallville tried to loop her into what turned out to be NXIVM-adjacent. Yes, that NXIVM. The reveal is tucked into Dunham's new memoir, and it is one of those stories that makes you pause and go, wait, what timeline are we in?

Dunham, 39, says she met a lot of familiar faces during the Girls casting process. Mack was one of them. Dunham didn’t think Mack fit any of the roles — but then the emails started rolling in. Every week, for a year.

"I recognized a woman named Allison Mack from Smallville; she wasn’t right for any of the roles but invited me via email to her 'intimate women’s group' every week for the next year (there but for the grace of God go I)."

That anecdote is in Dunham’s memoir Famesick, which hit shelves on Tuesday, April 14. And if your brain immediately went to NXIVM and DOS, same. Dunham doesn’t name the group, but she sure seems to be referencing DOS — the so-called women’s empowerment subgroup inside Keith Raniere’s NXIVM. Mack, now 43, was a prominent recruiter for Raniere, who is currently in prison.

How we got from casting emails to federal charges

Mack’s trajectory is well-documented and, frankly, grim. She was arrested in April 2018 for her role in NXIVM — accused of recruiting women and hit with counts that included identity fraud and money laundering. She ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, was sentenced to three years in June 2021, and was released in July 2023 after serving 21 months.

Since getting out, Mack has been unusually open about what she says she endured inside the group. On a November 2025 episode of a podcast titled "Allison Mack After NXIVM," she described the strict, punishing lifestyle she followed under Raniere’s influence — including a self-imposed target to keep her weight between 105 and 107 pounds and an obsessively scheduled daily routine.

Her words about that period are blunt. She said she tracked every action, every minute, and tied it to some trait she was trying to develop. She also said she was on roughly 500 calories a day while running six miles daily, was all-in on half marathons, and did yoga every morning for about six years. Mondays were full fasts: she would stop eating at 5 p.m. Sunday and not eat again until 5 a.m. Tuesday. She remembered always being freezing, hiding under big scarves, and said she got so thin she could touch her fingers around her waist. As she put it: "I mean, I was anorexic."

As for Raniere, Mack says she has only heard from him once since his arrest — a form letter sent to those awaiting trial. She added on a November 2025 episode of the "Inside of You" podcast that she chose not to read it.

The quick timeline

• Early 2010s: Dunham meets Allison Mack while casting Girls. Mack follows up with repeated invites to an "intimate women’s group."
• April 14 (year not specified): Dunham publishes memoir Famesick, sharing the story.
• April 2018: Mack is arrested in connection with NXIVM, accused of recruiting women and charged with crimes including identity fraud and money laundering.
• June 2021: Mack pleads guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy; sentenced to three years.
• July 2023: She is released after serving 21 months.
• November 2025: Mack details her experience and extreme regimen on the "Allison Mack After NXIVM" podcast; says on "Inside of You" that she received but did not read a letter from Raniere before trial.

It’s a startling collision of two very different TV worlds: the scrappy HBO show that launched a wave of conversations about messy millennial adulthood, and the darkest saga to hit a CW star since, well, ever. Dunham’s aside isn’t sensational so much as it is sobering — a reminder of how close proximity can get without you even realizing it.

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