14 DAY TRIAL // After almost a decade of complete silence, Monica Lewinsky, whose name shall forever be remembered in association with former US President Bill Clinton, with whom she conducted a most “inappropriate” and highly mediated affair, is speaking out on the 1998 scandal and how she’s been trying to pick up the pieces of her life ever since.
At the time, she and Clinton had the affair that led to his impeachment that same year (he was later acquitted), Monica was 22. She never really got into the details of the affair or the subsequent scandal even though, she writes in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, she had ample opportunity to do that.
In fact, she says, she could have even become a rich woman, richer beyond her wildest dreams, by selling out Clinton and dishing the dirt on everything they did, but she chose to not do that. She chose to retire from public life and to try and continue with her life.
Her past never stopped coming back to haunt her, though, Lewinsky argues. She would always be the woman with a “history” who could not make public appearances, not even for the charity organizations she would volunteer for.
It’s time for all this to stop. “It's time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress. I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened,” Lewinsky writes.
“Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position... The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power,” she continues.
In an excerpt released online by Vanity Fair ahead of the print edition, which will include the full piece, Lewinsky also recalls how suicidal she was in the months after the scandal and how her mother would not leave her bedside for a second lest she did something drastic.
She never even attempted, she is quick to clarify but, because she’s been in this position, she knows what others must be feeling as well. She also understands those who do do something drastic and take their own life when the bullying doesn’t stop.
“I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet,” the former White House intern writes. “[My goal today] is to get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”