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Monica Lewinsky is emotionally revisiting the Bill Clinton scandal nearly 30 years later, revealing that she is still living with fear from the fallout.
In a candid conversation with actress Jameela Jamil, Lewinsky opened up about trauma, public shaming and surviving one of the most infamous scandals in modern American history.
Jamil asked Lewinsky how she is doing now after years of relentless public scrutiny.
MONICA LEWINSKY SAYS BILL CLINTON ‘ESCAPED A LOT MORE THAN I DID’ AFTER WHITE HOUSE SCANDAL
Monica Lewinsky opens up about surviving public shaming from the Bill Clinton affair. (Jamie McCarthy/WireImage/Getty Images)
“How do you feel now? Having your life, your identity, your appearance in particular picked apart, where are you at with all of this?” Jamil asked during a guest appearance on the “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky” podcast.
Lewinsky said she has grown more comfortable with herself, even as the wounds from the past linger.
“I think I fall in a place where I feel more confident in myself as a person … I feel like every time I’m able to be more myself in the world and have it reflected back to me that that’s what’s been received, I think that I shed skin of trauma for myself from the older days,” Lewinsky said.
Jamil pointed out that Lewinsky had no way to push back or defend herself when the Clinton scandal erupted in the late 1990s.
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Monica Lewinsky gets emotional discussing how the Clinton scandal still impacts her life today, revealing ongoing fears about her carefully rebuilt life. (Gilbert Flores)
“There was no outlet for you to have any control over your own narrative back then. Like now, you actually have a place where you can immediately offer a rebuttal,” Jamil said.
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Lewinsky agreed — but admitted fear still keeps her from fully using her voice.
“Yes. But I don’t always … I still live in a lot of fear … It just may sound crazy, which is almost like an earthquake will happen and everything I’ve built in the last 11 years – oh gosh, it is making me emotional – will be taken away again, and I’ll somehow find myself without purpose or, you know, without an income,” Lewinsky said.
A photograph showing former White House intern Monica Lewinsky meeting President Bill Clinton at a White House function was submitted as evidence in documents by the Starr investigation and released by the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21, 1998. (Getty Images)
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Nearly three decades ago, Lewinsky, then a White House intern, had an affair with then-President Bill Clinton while he was in office. Clinton later faced impeachment proceedings in December 1998, while Lewinsky became a global target of ridicule and humiliation.
Now, Lewinsky added, surviving the past remains an ongoing struggle.
Then-President Bill Clinton answered the House Judiciary Committee’s 81 questions as part of its impeachment inquiry the day after Thanksgiving in 1998. (Diana Walker HC/Contour by Getty Images)
“I think … it’s just trying to hold on to what’s now and not what was, right? But the living through the ‘what was’ is, you know, which I know you have done in your own ways too … you talking about having been suicidal,” Lewinsky said to Jamil.
Jamil described the devastating impact of mass public shaming, warning that a global backlash can be life-threatening.
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“A global pile-on made me suicidal. It’s really intense … everything did get taken from me for a while. Not at the scale — and it was global when it happened to me — but not at the scale of what happened to you,” Jamil said.
In recent years, Lewinsky has since reemerged as an anti-bullying advocate and public speaker, frequently discussing the lasting consequences of public shaming and how the scandal continues to shape her life today.