Here are some photos of Monica Lewinsky at the American Crime Story: Impeachment premiere last week. She really looked good, her hair especially. She always had nice hair. As many know, Monica is a producer on ACS: Impeachment. Ryan Murphy apparently wanted her involvement and her blessing for the story, and the series tells the story more from Monica’s perspective than anything else. For years now, Monica has been asking for a mulligan on her public image, begging people to not define her by the consensual affair she had with President Clinton starting in late 1995, when she was 22 years old. Over the years, Monica has insisted that #MeToo should apply to her too, even though she literally consented to every part of the actual affair with Clinton. While I will always say that Lewinsky was treated abhorrently by Ken Starr and the media, it’s bothered me how little ownership Lewinsky has taken for her own sh-tty decisions. So the promotion for ACS: Impeachment just feels like a continuation of all of that. Speaking of, Monica was on the Today Show yesterday and she said words:
In an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie, Monica Lewinsky opened up about how she felt in the wake of her sex scandal with former president Bill Clinton. Lewinsky, who joined the show to discuss her role as a producer on “American Crime Story: Impeachment,” which dramatizes the incident, reflected on not being able to have any closure with Clinton.
“There was a long period, before my life changed in the last six or seven years, where I felt a lot in terms of there not being this resolution,” Lewinsky said. “I’m very grateful that I don’t have that feeling anymore. I don’t need it.”
“He should want to apologize in the same way I want to apologize any chance I get to people my actions have hurt,” Lewinsky continued.
Lewinsky, who said she made notes on scripts and offered suggestions for the FX miniseries, added that she wasn’t sure how she’d feel about Clinton watching the show.
“Would you want Bill Clinton to see this series?” Savannah asked.
“I don’t even know how to really answer that,” Lewinsky said.
Lewinsky said that it’s been difficult watching a fictionalized version of her early-20s self make decisions that would impact the rest of her life. “I do not recommend watching your early 20s be dramatized on TV,” Lewinsky quipped. “Especially in this instance where the truth really was stranger than fiction. (There were) moments where I just thought, ‘Don’t smile back. Don’t talk to her. Don’t confess. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t make bad decisions.’ I think that that was really hard to see.”
Lewinsky added that she believes people would react to the scandal differently today. “I don’t know that it would be as different as people want to think it would be,” Lewinsky explained. “But we are having conversations about power differentials in different ways. It’s not just people in power who have voices. The beauty and the beast of social media is more people can be heard. I might have had a little bit of support.”
I tend to think there is a generational divide on all of this. Those of us who lived through it and were old enough to understand the politics of it (I was in college during the Starr investigation/report) remember the feeling of anger… anger that President Clinton’s political enemies would stop at nothing to take him down and humiliate him and everyone around him. There was sympathy for Monica, just like there was sympathy for Hillary Clinton (as the wronged wife) and sympathy for Bill Clinton (his approval ratings soared, especially with men). Younger people who didn’t live through this or were kids through this… they might see it as more black-and-white, they might see Monica as “the victim” of the situation which… in real time, it was much more complicated than that.
As for the idea that Bill Clinton never apologized to her – he did. He apologized publicly and privately for everything, to everyone. He’s said repeatedly that he would love a chance to speak to Monica years later. The only thing he disputed was the idea that Monica’s story belonged in the Me Too discussion.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Clinton as the person in the position of power took advantage of Monica. There’s no disputing that.
I completely agree. She didn’t make the decision – when THE POTUS comes on to you, what 22 y.o. has the power or balls to say no?
Didn’t she pursue him? I seem to recall a detail about her saying she wanted/it was her goal to date or sleep with him.
Actually , you have that power if you care about your values and integrity more than giving in to the POTUS. I’ve turned away wealthy powerful men in the entertainment industry since I was 14 , even those who threatened to end my career , because that’s the way I was raised. So she was an adult and could’ve made better decisions but she didn’t and continues to milk it.
With all due respect I disagree. After all these years gone by after that ‘incident’ I honestly believe she was a willing participant in the dalliance. All you have to do is look at the sparkle in her eyes when they have hug in that infamous video.
Monica pursued him and yes, Clinton is a creep for not turning her down. She also sexually harassed George Stephanopoulos. Did she ever apologize to him?
The media was wrong for how Monica was treated but she absolutely was not a victim of sexual harassment. She was the one sexually harassing others.
She totally pursued him. She told a friend she was going to Washington with her “presidential knee-pads”.
HOWEVER… He is twice her age (at least), HE was the married one (with the vows to his wife), HE was in the position of power over her. While she may’ve wanted the “notch” of “getting him”, HE should’ve said no to her “ambitions”.
Yes, he was (and probably is) still a “cheating hound dog”. His involvement with Epstein will ALWAYS be a HUGE bright red flag to me. I’m sure he was/is used to taking whomever he wants when he wants it. But he was her BOSS. So yeah… while she made the overtures, I put this on HIM, not so much her.
In Monica’s accounts of Tripp and the tapes she was a willing participant in this. She enjoyed the older and powerful man showing interest. She was not a victim and the way she carried herself since has backed that up. Her job was never in jeopardy and she profited off marketing herself as his former mistress.
She’s just trying to play it all up again to promote herself.
“I’ve turned away wealthy powerful men in the entertainment industry since I was 14 , even those who threatened to end my career , because that’s the way I was raised.”
So much yikes. While it’s great that worked out for you, and disgusting and sad that you had to deal with powerful men in the entertainment industry even behaving like that toward you at 14, there’s a whole lot of sensitivity missing from this comment. The fact that many of us did successfully reject older creeps while underage doesn’t mean we have the right to act morally superior to other girls and boys who didn’t, or even always mean their parents were crappy. A kid can be raised right and have lots of integrity but still not be thinking right all the time, not always make the best decisions, or not yet have a deep enough understanding of grooming when an exploitative attractive adult comes along. We have to be careful.
I thought she was 25 by the time things actually crossed into an affair.
100% I agree she was the victim in all this. I kind of don’t understand why an author of this site (that can be so understanding and supportive) would disagree. And I did live through it. And joked about her, like everyone else in the world. And it took #Metoo to appreciate how awful we all were to her.
You can be both a victim and an aggressor. She was a victim of the media but she was also an inappropriate person who didn’t care about how her behavior effected other people.
I did live through this too and I remember no sympathy for her whatsoever. She as a person and she as a not super thin person was the butt of every joke on late night television for months if not years.
I also agree that Monica was the victim. Nearly all the blame is on Clinton.
Exactly. He was much older and experienced. I remember that time too and although a lot of us were on Clinton’s side, I have no doubt that she experienced huge amounts of ridicule, blame, slut shaming and portraying her as villainess. I remember that too.
Just because we remember it one way, doesn’t mean she experienced it the same way we did.
Yeah, I don’t like the idea that we’re deciding for her whether or not #MeToo applies. He was the President of the United States. He obviously had power. If she feels like it applies to her situation, it’s not up to anyone else to decide.
And just a reminder, victims are usually not perfect or fit into one easy box of classification. That doesn’t mean she can’t still be a victim. How the Republicans handled the situation (using it as leverage to go after Clinton) has nothing to do with her.
I’m glad I’m not the only one! All of this.
she was a victim of Linda Tripp too – she encouraged Monica so she could get more recordings to use as ammunition against Clinton when she could. Monica was naive, a product of our society in that women are valued for what they can do for a man, and had proximity to power. For many people, those are an elixir for regrettable and hurtful decisions. She also had bad people around her. Tripp told her to keep the dress, encouraged her to pursue Bill, and she did so while serving her own agenda.
There shouldn’t even be a debate. You can’t get higher in power than being the President of the United States of America. Like many other women and young girls, I’m sure she was flattered that he paid attention to her, but he shouldn’t have pursued her.
This! He was the “adult” in the room. He should have known better.
She pursued him (he was not her first) which she freely admitted. He should have turned her down and then reported her to her boss.
Btw at 22 we do stupid things but we are still ADULTs responsible for our choices. Stop infantilizing women.
She expressed to several people that she would end up with him and joked with others about her “presidential knee pads” Yeah, no. She was a willing participant and only a victim of the media.
22 is still young. It’s not infantilising a woman to say that a leader of an organisation, in his 50s, have no business messing around with the 22 year old intern. The older person in this scenario should know better than to abuse his position. I find it quite normal for people to develop infatuations (to the extent that it doesn’t cross into unhinged obsession) to someone in power. We see it happen all the time between fans and celebrities. I just don’t think it should be reciprocated where the power dynamics are that imbalanced. The President had an ethical obligation not to cross that boundary at work and have sex with a young infatuated intern. Yet he did it. Not because he was helpless and being relentlessly pursued, but because he could.
Totally agree with Myra. Well said.
Monica admitted to chasing after Clinton and also admitted that he wasn’t her first married man she had sex with. Monica was a grown woman who liked to chase after married men. It was her own fault and she was the one who pulled up her dress to excite him by showing him her thong. Behavior no honorable woman would have done. Monica never respected the sisterhood of women and went after another woman’s husband. Bill was wrong also by being unfaithful to his wife.
yes to all of this. I’m really confused at all of these comments and the infantilizing of a grown up woman that by her own words pursued this relationship. I do think the president should have hold a better moral compass and was on the wrong to get involved with a subordinate (as anyone in a power position is, but how often does that happen and ends up in marriage?), even if she gave him consent for that. Still, I think it’s a very valid and important discussion to not position this as sexual abuse. It bugs me how no responsibility is assigned to her…she kept the dress FFS!
100000% she was a grown ass adult who knew what she was doing. She plays victim because what they did together became what she is still known for. So that bothers her but even now she makes a good living off of it so spare the victim hood.
This because while he should have turned her down and it’s gross that he abused his own power, I don’t appreciate her pursuit of him being equated to those of us who actively turned down and discouraged the men in power above us and then paid a price for it.
In fact, women like her who pursued those men made it even harder to advance and even keep our jobs for those of us who said no.
I hate what the media did to her and how Republicans used her when they don’t even care about women at all (hello Trump, Newt, et al) but that doesn’t make her completely innocent.
Yet when I think of the crap Kristin Stewart got on this very site for sleeping with her married director… so she wasn’t a victim, but somehow, a woman with a history of pursuing married men, who told people that she planned to seduce the President, kept the dress, and has never taken responsibility for her own actions is a victim?
Neither she nor Slick Willy are victims. He definitely should have shut it down.
THANK YOU!!! She was a full grown adult who had a habit of chasing after older MARRIED men. He was a selfish fool but she was and is NO victim. She kept the dress, why do you think that is. Why is it that we’re so willing to let white women transform THEIR bad actions into victimization?
“In fact, women like her who pursued those men made it even harder to advance and even keep our jobs for those of us who said no.” No to this. While Monica is responsible for her choice, that’s all she’s responsible for. It’s the responsibility of Bill Clinton, and any other man, to not turn what one woman willingly did with him sexually into something he pressures other women into or punishes them for not doing.
Bill Clinton was not the first married man she messed with! My gosh, I don’t know why some of yall don’t want to know the real story. She was no innocence! It was all premeditated. She said she was going to the white house with her presidential knee pads! Some men are just too weak to turn down easy sexual things!
No, Bill could have still turned her down. He’s an inappropriate person as well.
She’s gross, for sure, but it was on Bill to be a responsible person, as literally the leader of the free world. I could give a crap if she was or wasn’t an innocent. And we know she wasn’t. But it was on him to move the intern who was behaving inappropriately.
First of all have you actually read her book or read the STARR report? I have. Monica comes from a wealthy family. While attending college in CA she had an affair with a married professor. She then moved to the DC area to take an unpaid internship at the WH and lived with her mother in the WATERGATE building. The child of white privileged personified. Once at the WH she was vying for Clinton’s attention. This is coming from other interns who worked at the WH during those years. After the whole debacle she landed a job at the Pentagon, had an affair with a married naval officer and had an abortion. She was in her 20s. She never hung out with or associated with other interns at the WH. (I know this as I had friends from that period who worked at the WH). She zeroed in on Clinton and he thought with his d—k. Monica owes Hillary an apology. Monica has parlayed her victim hood into a handbag design deal at Bergdorf Goodman for a time, a tv show, a spot at the London School of Economics, and a stint on The View. There are real victims out there. Monica made some bad choices and unlike many of us, myself included, hers happened in the public eye.
Also, at 22, who hasn’t done stupid things they would take back? At Clinton’s age, he should have known she was too young & too inexperienced in politics to understand how her actions would shape the rest of her life. I did live through this and I think it’s a 20% – 80% responsibility here. With the burden mostly on Bill. I don’t believe at 22 you “Know what you are doing”….of course, you think you do but truth is, you don’t.
100%. Would I go so far as to call her a victim? No. But there was way too much power imbalance and age difference for me to feel particularly bad for Bill Clinton. He’s the one who betrayed his wife and put that stain on his legacy. Him and him alone. I was a moron when I was 22. She didn’t deserve the way she was treated and she went through a LOT. I’m really glad to see her have this moment.
Agree with loloalola and canichange. Excellent comments. Bill was the one who made the choice to betray his wife. I would go after my husband for betraying me and not the mistress.
I agree with you Kaiser. There was definitely a power dynamic at play here. But she also bragged about her affair and even told her friend before she planned on doing it. It also wasn’t her first time pursuing a married man. Are the married men more in the wrong? OF COURSE. But she was 22 and knew what she was doing. By 22 I knew what I was doing when I made some stupid choices. Luckily I wasn’t in the public eye doing them. The media and the Clinton enemies treated her like sh!t of course. Again, not denying that. But I don’t see her as a victim either.
Agreed, Erica.
Right but even take out the specific players and personalities, it’s pretty problematic for a supervisor in any workplace to be having a romantic/sexual relationship with a subordinate. And this wasn’t a radical notion in the 90s either. The power imbalance creates incredibly risky areas. He in the position of power should have immediately shut it down, even if she initiated it. Transferred her or whatever, but the second he continued this is on him. And does make it Me Too adjacent at the very least. Me Too and sexual harassment IS about exposing power dynamics and how they can be abused. Regardless of our judgments of the personalities involved and how they acted. And when we do remind ourselves he was the literal “leader of the free world”, I honestly don’t know how anyone can look at this and not see an immediate problem and fault with HIS actions way over her’s due to his extreme power in the interaction. Yes the assertion is she knew what she was doing and apparently isn’t our ideal “victim”. I don’t even think she thinks of herself as a victim from what I gather from public comments she’s made. But I find his wrong here much more significant. And this discussion was obfuscated by the horrendous 90s sexist coverage of the situation. I’m glad there’s been a re look at this now (just in general, not necessarily the ACS show which looks meh) with some added social understanding of power dynamics and workplace environments.
It wasn’t radical in the 90s? Anita Hill accused the Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of disgusting sexual harassment in 91 and he was confirmed and she was ruined for at least a decade due to Republican smears on her testimony, which by the way only came about because someone leaked an FBI investigation into Thomas.
Sorry but it was radical in the 90s. It was only more accepted largely in part due to Anita Hill, who was still being harassed and defamed by Clarence Thomas, his wife, and Republicans in 2000s and in his book, in which he called her his “most traitorous adversary.”
Anita Hill was sexually harassed and did not provide any consent to the comments, and everything else Clarence Thomas did to her. It is not even remotely similar to the Lewinsky and Clinton affair. It does a disservice to women who are actually sexually harassed to conflate these two scenarios.
Monica did something dumb but at no point was there ever a lack of consent in that situation. Yes Bill should have said no and stopped it, but Anita was not asked permission for any of the things Clarence Thomas said and did to her.
I have to agree with Kaiser on this. Yes, he was the one in power and the married party but she bragged about how she went after this man. He should have said no and the way she was treated by the hypocritical ghouls of the republican party was awful. Another person may have cratered but she didn’t she thrived and continues to do so. I’m happy that she is able to tell her story and heal. I just don’t believe that President Clinton owes her anything more.
She was 22 in white people years, which is basically 10 in the media.
Me Too applies and there is a definite power imbalance like no other, but I wonder when white people who are legal adults start being reported on as adults. We still hear about 30 year old white men who do terrible things being referred to as young boys with an aw shucks caught with a hand in the cookie jar narrative.
Yup. The witchhunt from the media was wrong, but Monica was a privileged white girl who didn’t care about what damage she left behind her and felt entitled to do whatever she wanted with no consequences.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this comment. 22 years old and yep, to some, she wasn’t an adult? She was a LITERAL adult. C’mon people. Quit treating her with kid gloves.
Great point! Triggers the thought…if she were 22 and committed murder would we try her as a child? ?
I agree she was a privileged white girl who got a lot of passes and attention nonwhite women wouldn’t and don’t get, although I’d argue that a lot of people are downplaying Clinton’s actions in this post with an “aw shucks” attitude in some ways (one sentence about him, and loooong paragraphs about her awfulness). To add, though (and I know nobody is saying this, I just am making the statement) I don’t think she had more privilege or responsibility for the damage left behind than the white man who sat in the most privileged seat on earth.
I think more people who don’t like her bring up her age than otherwise. 22 is obviously an adult.
And pursuing a married man and committing murder are two things that are not even a fair comparison.
This!
You said it, Hailey. But if you think a 30 year old being infantilized is something, I remember a white politician saying that his dreadful misconduct was “just boyhood hijinks.” He was in his 40s at the time. It never ends.
Re Monica, you can continue to make money from the terrible incident (for Hillary, Chelsea, & the whole country), gossip/brag about it at the time w/ Linda Tripp, say you’re going to Washington to get your presidential kneepads, flash your thongs to the man, but don’t, don’t, don’t try to pretend that it was not consensual. Geez.
And, yes, Clinton should have known better too & had more to lose. Also, the media and Repubs were outrageous at the time, but Monica is still responsible for her own actions.
I too agree, and why doesn’t she bring Hillary to the conversation? I don’t care how much of a B people think she is, she’s still the wife and that’s another level of embarrassment. I remember the scandal, I’m about Monica’s age and I can tell you that at that age you’ll brag about a stupid situation , you’ll regret it later,but you definitely know what you’re doing and a lot of times you don’t care who gets hurt. I felt bad for her because she was treated badly by the press but girl please, you got your apology, move on
Perfectly written,
.
I remember that whole mess and I remember all of the jokes. I do feel bad for the total public humiliation that she suffered, but that’s it. She was young and there WAS a power imbalance, but she was old enough to know what she was doing. I just don’t see her as a victim.
I agree, and the key word is consent. She forever be known for this, and yes, it’s limiting and embarrassing, but she consented. Consenting makes all the difference in the world. What’s irritating is that she’s advanced in her studies and she’s got all these skills, but she will forever be known for this and there’s no escaping it. I feel so sorry for her.
She not only consented, she planned it. It’s what she wanted before she even met him. Yes, he definitely should have not have gotten involved with her for numerous reasons but she was not a victim of Bill Clinton. She definitely was a victim of Ken Starr and Lindsey Graham, but not Bill Clinton.
Agree. She pursued him. It was the ultimate challenge for her. Probably the only reason she wanted to go to DC. And she never considered his wife or daughter. Just because she was immature doesn’t make her a child.
For those mentioning “power imbalance” like it’s a catch word with no meaning, Monica knew he was president and had power but she was still not intimidated by that. In fact, she considered it more of a challenge as she made stated plans to get him, and she kept her stained dress as a trophy. Then boasted to Linda Tripp about having said dress in that condition, because as we all know, what’s the fun of doing all that unless someone else knows you’re doing it.
I don’t think she’s a bad person, but she doesn’t get to rewrite history or fit herself into a more modern movement in the hopes of getting more sympathetic treatment.
She was groomed by a high school teacher with whom she had an affair. From that perspective, I do see her as a victim. She was also the victim of the worst advice possible when the story broke. Instead of getting out of town and laying low, her lawyer dragged her out to dinner at every hotspot in DC. It looked like she was flaunting the affair. Lastly, the media held her entirely responsible for the affair and slut shamed her in a way that would be totally unacceptable today.
I agree. I don’t see her as a victim, except by the media who dragged her through the mud. The jokes that were made at her expense were utterly vile. Clinton made a mistake obviously, but Monica definitely pursued him. Over and over she tried to see him, call him, anything. And while I don’t see her as a victim, I don’t think she is a bad person either. She seems lovely and warm.
And that’s not to say Clinton has always behaved well towards women. I believe the women who said he assaulted them.
+1 again. You’ve covered all the nuances.
I think Monica Lewinsky is wonderful. I’ve followed her on Twitter for years after hearing her on an interview – Armchair Expert? – and was so impressed with her poise, self-reflection, intelligence, and warmth. I totally give her a pass for what happened when she was 22 and in awe of this powerful man seducing her.
Same! She’s actually really lovely
It was the other way around. She admitted actually going in to the DC with the intention of seducing him.
She doesn’t seem to have much self-reflection. She was and continues to be a privileged, self-centered woman who has had multiple affairs with married men and has had various money-making opportunities handed to her because of it. I don’t know, I don’t see anything admirable there.
What is the ID on that dress its gorgeous!
Don’t know, but Monica is looking so fantastic!
I always thought that she was pretty. And she has great hair.
@LillyfromLilooet, I agree. She looks great.
As an intern, someone in such an unequal position to the President, Monica Lewinsky was the victim in that ugly situation. It was something, that even while it was consensual, would get the person in the higher position fired in the corporate world.
When power dynamics are so lopsided it’s not really a positive situation for the party with the least amount of power.
Bill Clinton is/was a well known Dog! and also liar among a ton of other moral failings.
He is not ever going to apologize to her, ever.
I have zero interest in any rehash of this old news.
I need some good comedy to take me outta my troubles, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Ted Lasso
Ted Lasso will restore your faith in humanity!
‘BELIEVE!!!’
LOVE Ted Lasso!!!
…? She propositioned him. She turned around and showed him her thong. This is NOT a sexual harassments situation.
Agree and I’ll also add that it appears she has contributed to the public spectacle of it when it suits her.
Totally does. Back in ’98, she easily could have faded into obscurity. Changed her name, still gone to law school, earned a living and be a productive member of society without dredging this gross situation up for laughs every two weeks on twitter.
Has she ever apologized to Hillary?
I ask this because the trailer for the TV series SHE produced seems to portray Hillary as a villain, which she most certainly was not.
Thank you, I was going to ask the same thing.
Monica apologized to Hillary on a Barbara Walters interview years back, when the scandal was still rather new. Did she do so privately? Who knows? I don’t know if this series will portray Hillary as a villain. We will have to wait and see. But Hillary did trash Monica too, in the press. Calling her a slut, whore. But, hey, she had an affair with her husband.
I agree with what many people say here. There was a HUGE power imbalance here. Furthermore, Clinton is a known philanderer, and there are many women who claimed he sexually assaulted them, which I believe. Monica was 22, not a minor by any means, but we have all done stupid things in our twenties that we regret. She was absolutely trashed by the media, Ken Starr, betrayed by Linda Tripp. It is a very nuanced situation because she did give consent – there is no doubt about that. I do understand in many ways, this scandal defined her, but I wish she would stop involving herself in projects that perpetuate that very thing. I was glad she did that Ted Talk several years ago. Fine. But did she really need to involve herself in this project?? All of us who lived this nightmare don’t need to rehash it. I think most people have some sympathy for Monica, maybe some more than others. It was a horrible fucking scandal – for many, many people.
I agree that Bill is a known cheater and I wouldn’t put it past him to be a predator, but he wasn’t in this case. Monica has said she wanted to seduce him and he totally agreed to it. They are both adults. Was it wrong? ABSOLUTELY because both workplace and cheating. But it’s not ME TOO.
I don’t really understand this ongoing narrative that Hillary was a scorned wife – I think she was publicly humiliated which she hated but I don’t believe for a second she cared who Bill slept with. He oozes playboy and there are many, many stories about him affairs and one night stands.
I admire Hillary for taking on the roles she has had, her ambition, her insights, her parenting, and so on. But I do not think she is a scorned wife.
She is a partner in a political partnership that works well and I think she and Bill genuinely enjoy and like each other, probably love each other, and fidelity isn’t necessary for a healthy relationship for some people.
Oh God, please don’t let there be a single reason in the world for Monica to get another 15 minutes. As an adult she stalked and obsessed as a groupie trying to finagle any opportunity to hit on the president. Nobody was telling her she could get a job if only she would have sex. If she gets an idea that she has to apologize to Hilary, we might have to see her again.
LP,
Excellent point. (Looks like in reading responses she did, a long time ago) But what I want is an apology from Monica for all of us, because the ML scandal left an indelible mark on Hilary and one could say that Trump being president is Monica’s fault. Where is THAT apology? (Ok, I am mostly kidding but in all seriousness I am not here for a series that makes Hilary the villain in that Bill/Monica situation..at all.
I 100% agree that Bill had the ability and obligation to turn Monina down when she made her advances. But knowing that she made jokes about presidential knee pads before she even MET him makes it hard for me to see her as his victim. Though yeah, her treatment by the media was deplorable.
I sort of think Lewinsky suffers (if that’s the right word) for not being a ‘perfect’ victim. She was messy at the time. We’d all hope we would know better in her position. But to describe the whole scandal as simply a consensual affair is too far for me. Bill Clinton had decades of experience being A Dog and decades of experience being the more powerful person in an illicit relationship. He was the President of the United States. He was married and she wasn’t. Not liking Lewinsky and her choices is understandable but suggesting things could be equitable in their relationship is not.
This, A! She was a mess, just like I was a mess when I was 22. Add in there being a victim of abuse, it’s just not fair to say all things are equal here.
1) She was the one who pursued him. She told her friends she was going to Washington to sleep with him. And he turned her down for a while.
2) He was the one who ended it.
3) She faced no repercussions with her job until she started stalking him.
4) At one point she went as far as trying to knock on his residential door while his wife and daughter were there.
5) the secret service literally tried to keep her away from him for months after he ended the affair.
6) She saved a dress to blackmail him. (Linda trip and the GOP did manipulate her and use her as a tool at this point.)
If their genders were switched around, people would see it for what it was.
Bill was married and the president. She didn’t force him to have sexual relations with her. That’s on him. And he is a creep. But this is not a me too situation.
Every word-completely agree.
Exactly. To put it plainly, in my view, it is unfair to put her in the #MeToo category. Did any of the actresses brag to their friends they were going to head to Hollywood to “get their director knee pads”? It’s not the same.
At a certain point, it feels like she’s been using #MeToo to prop up her redemption tour, which is messed up. Also she was 22, and made dumb mistakes, but she’s middle-aged now. She needs to let it go.
Exactly, people want to forget these facts because they want to fit Monica’s situation with all the others.
Facts.
+1 context and facts matter
As I recall when she got her internship at the White House her comment to the teacher she had a 5-year affair with was “time to get my presidential kneepads.” The teacher said she boasted of having oral sex with a “high-ranking person in the White House” and phoned him up to five times a day with news of her adventures.
She also chased after George Stephanopoulos incessantly, flirting and hanging around his office, bringing him Starbucks coffee, to the point where he asked his assistant to get rid of her and subsequently had her transferred to her intern position.
I do not have one iota of sympathy for Monica. The old “well when you’re young you make dumb mistakes” doesn’t work for me. I didn’t make dumb mistakes like that when I was that age. I didn’t sleep with my married teacher, I didn’t give the married president of the company I worked for BJs. I didn’t stalk him. She knew EXACTLY what she was doing and Clinton took advantage of it. In my mind they’re both horrible people but Monica’s been dining off it as the poor misused little victim ever since.
@jaded, EXACTLY
But – look at your very first sentence. The teacher she was having a 5 year affair with. The teacher that she continued to call to update him on her adventures.
It sounds like she was a victim before she ever got to the White House.
They had the affair when she was in college. It started when she was 19 and the guy was 26 and ended when the wife found out,
@Becks1 – having read lots of reporting on Monica’s affair with Andy Bleiler, none of it reads like she was coerced or manipulated into the relationship by him. In fact his wife Kathy indicated that Lewinsky was constantly trying to worm her way into their family by being nice to their 2 kids, which Monica often baby-sat. She actually started showing up uninvited at their house and bringing the kids gifts. Monica clearly had an obsessive/fantasizing streak when it came to romance , and once it was triggered it was impossible to shut down. What I do feel sorry about is that she got raked through the coals by Ken Starr and the media for no reason other than Ken Starr had a compulsive hatred of Clinton and the Dems. For that she was the sacrificial lamb.
Bleiler is the man who slept with a 19 year old and ran to the press to tell of it once the scandal in the White House hit. He is the one who stated she bragged about having an affair with a high-ranking official. I am going to take his account with a grain of salt.
I don’t agree with a lot of Lewinsky’s choices and I find the choice of being part of a TV special a little crass. But it’s possible to reconcile that with the idea that those above her had responsibility which is not being largely examined in this story (and that’s for a reason).
@Maria: Agreed. Cheating on your spouse with a student who isn’t even out of their teens yet. What a prize.
It’s common for the knee-jerk reaction to stories of young women cheating with people to be a flood of “When I was 22, 21, 20, 19, etc., I knew better!” It is true, and in this has been one of my responses when the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton comes up on the internet.
But this is also moment of reevaluating how young women have been treated and taking the dangers that came with it seriously. I only bring that point up because, while people didn’t do what Monica did at 22, people do other problematic things at, and often very much past, 22. That’s why I love how Vox is covering the misogyny of the previous decades.
I’m not going to call Monica a victim of a sexual fantasy she chose to indulge in as an adult. But the aftermath was awful, and there should be room for people to grow past and not get frozen at that point.
@mil – You are spot on. Yet whatever the impetus, these were consenting adults having private encounters that none of us should have known about and/or had exploited by right-wing political extremists (one of whom is now on the Supreme Court, horrifyingly). I have never understood why Lewinsky kept the dress, and it has always made me wonder if she was participating in a set up. Unquestionably, the Clinton take-down gutted the Democratic party’s power base, and we are still suffering the negative repercussions today.
I agree she was the victim in that horrible situation. And she seems like a nice, interesting person. But this was 30 years ago, And it was a consensual although completely imbalanced relationship. So why is she still talking about it? I hate to make comparisons. But Anita Hill hasn’t constantly traded on what happened to her. She’s become a powerhouse on gender and sexual harassment in the workplace in her own right. I wish Lewinsky had followed a similar path, but 30 years later she still defines herself and gives herself relevancy via Bill Clinton. I guess everyone responds to life crises in their own way, but it seems weird to me,
She laid low for many years. She went back to school to get her master’s degree. She has stated that it was difficult to find work, because she was forever defined by the scandal. At some point she may have decided that it was futile to try to run from the scandal and instead decided to embrace it and take ownership of it.
I think there is a much more complicated convo on consent not happening.
How was Monica to know she would still keep her job if she refused him? How can you fully give consent to the most powerful man in the world? True consent to your boss requires no fear of retribution, no improper coercion. Since he was president that was impossible, even if she had a crush on him and flirted.
It’s like all the woman who might have slept with a director on the casting couch or whatever. They can’t fully consent, even if they have a crush on the director, because the director has the power to retaliate and fire them or blacklist them if they say no. That was also how Weinstein operated, no?
How can consent be freely given to an extremely powerful boss? I don’t think it can be.
She.made.the.first.move.
There’s still enough of ignoring that, even right here in these comments, that it’s infuriating.
Yes, he should have said no. Yes, he was in the wrong. Yes, she was treated terribly by the press and people who should have been her allies.
But she pursued him.
Thank you, a lot of rewriting history in these comments.
She didn’t refuse him, she stalked and enticed him relentlessly until he caved. She was like a heat-seeking missile with Clinton and even bragged to the MARRIED school teacher she’d had a 5-year affair with about her having oral sex with a “very high up person in the White House”. Yes Clinton was stupid and egotistical enough to fall for it but didn’t realize she had a “Fatal Attraction” obsession with him and she was willing to ruin his marriage to get him.
I think that she, by no means, deserved the extent of the backlash and cruelty that came out of that situation. Clinton definitely degraded the office by choosing to have a workplace affair. It was wrong, and it gross.
However, I’m not entirely thrilled by this trend of infantilizing early twenty something women whenever they chose to get involved in something like this. Regardless of the power dynamics at play, she’s not a child. Gen X weren’t so immature at that age as Millennials and Gen Z are, but even then, an adult at that age knows better about what kind of professional behavior is acceptable. Fucking your boss is not some obscure taboo.
She made a very stupid decision, one that she had no hope of coming out on the winning side. Women rarely do in those situations, simple as that. It’s unfortunate that she had to learn that lesson in such an ugly, publicly historical way, but there was naïveté there to think it would go down any other way. Sucks, but it’s a rigged game to some extent and especially so in politics.
I never found Bill Clinton to be attractive. However, I knew people who met him and said that his sexiness/charisma was off the charts. He was a married man who was in the ultimate power position. He abused his position to have sex with a 22 year old.
I did so many questionable things in my 20’s . So did Monica. I have more sympathy for her than Bill. He should have kept his shit in his pants. He had a wife and daughter.
I’ve met Clinton on several occasions and the charisma is for real.
I’ve never met him but I know plenty of people who have. Even older straight men who meet him are reduced to gushing about how he’s able to make you feel like you’re the only person in the room for him.
My parents knew him when he was governor of AK and they both said the level of charisma and charm was something they’d both never seen before.
I met him too, early 2000s, waited on him at a huge Fundraising Dinner. I personally waited on him, with Secret Service standing by LOL. Yes, the charisma and charm is FOR REAL. It draws you in. Hard to explain, unless you have met him in person.
He came to my college in 2008 during Hillary’s first presidential run to stump for his wife. The man commanded the room like no other and he had been out of office for 8 years at that point. I didn’t see him up close as I was pretty far away but the crowded loved him.
All of that aside, let’s talk 2021 and timing. There’s a governor’s race in California right now. Monica Lewinski has a legitimate beef but why talk to the media right now specifically about Bill Clinton? She’s done this before during other key elections.
She appeals mostly to voters who are old enough to remember the whole ugly mess. The older you are, the more likely you are to vote. There’s a MeToo tie-in for the younger voters.
She shows up now. It’s not a coincidence.
I’m not challenging that she may have done that In the past but right now, her show is premiering so it’s not shocking we’d be hearing from her.
Tom I can buy into that.
Add me to the voices that don’t think she was a victim. She was a 22 year old woman who made bad choices and is still whining about those choices all these years later.
She looks great in that dress.
I love for her that there was no way to pretend this messy awful thing in her youth didn’t happen, so now she is owning it in the most literal way- she is a producer on this story of what happened to her. And yes, her affair with a powerful, much older man.
She was in love. None of us escapes the stupid in love decisions we make in our lives, at least once- most of us more than once.
She has talked about it and expanded her oeuvre to bullying and online shaming, and i’m just immensely proud of her.
She could have gone down a much darker road.
Edit: I was born in 1972, so i remember this incredibly well.
And as American Crime Story 1 (OJ)- which i also remembered and watched closely, we all did- at the end of the show i thought crap, everyone in america owes each juror an apology, and we owe Marcia Clark a damn beach house, a really nice one.
We, as a society, were disgusting.
Someone said to me “could You imagine if this happened in 2021?” Who knows. Orange man got away with multiple offences as do many other men in power
Good F**KING point – who would have thought a reality TV star would have become President, and we would have lived through the horror of the last few years, and Trump still hasn’t been held accountable for all the shit he has done?? Clinton was impeached for this. How many women have accused Trump of sexual assault and rape? Some 26 to my knowledge. He also paid off a porn start $130,000 via his personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen. Simply disgusting on all levels.
Good for her for taking control and telling HER story
I just…can’t muster the energy to be upset about Monica Lewinsky in 2021. I lived through the scandal, too. And I remember how relentlessly she was humiliated. Bill Clinton was laughed off in a “boys will be boys” sense & as mentioned above, his approval ratings rose. She was a messy 22 year old who has been publicly punished enough. It was public knowledge that her only work prospects for a while were offers to do adult films. *Brett Kavanaugh* (working with Ken Starr, who later covered up sexual assault allegations at Baylor) helped draft the especially humiliating questions for Lewinsky about sex acts with Clinton. Knowing what we now know about Kavanaugh, I have no doubt he relished doing so.
A family friend worked in the Secret Service for decades, retiring just before Clinton took office. He has said that the only president he worked for who didn’t have multiple affairs in office was Jimmy Carter. So, if you’re not Hillary Clinton, why the outrage about Monica? The whole thing was a pretty blatant right-wing hit job against a popular Democrat in the White House. And the lingering anti-Clinton sentiment is part of why Trump was elected. And make no mistake, the Republicans delighted in Hillary’s humiliation as much as they delighted in Monica’s.
So if after all this time, Monica is offered the opportunity to have a say in a production about one of the worst times in her life? A production that other people are going to make money off of regardless of her involvement? I’m not gonna get mad about it.
I don’t care so much that she wants to profit from this story, after all so many others did. I do take offence when she tries to say this is a MeToo situation. It was not. She chose to pursue him and it was never a question of her doing things in order to keep her job. She had a choice and this is what she wanted to do. She was later victimized by the media and treated worse than Bill ever was, but she had agency in setting this in motion.
Yeah, I don’t remember Monica being given any sympathy during that time and I was old enough to remember. However, their relationship was consensual but there was an extremely unfair power dynamic involved.
That said, Monica says she would apologize to anyone she hurt, has she offered to apologize to Hillary? Hillary was truly the innocent victim in all of it.
Several things can be true at once here. One being that Bill Clinton is clearly a sexual predator in our current modern view of the word even if he wasn’t ever proven or considered to be one in the 90s. Two, his sexual predator tendencies may not have been the case here, however a power imbalance between POTUS and a 22yo intern is across the line. Three, she pursued him and was a messy 22yo with a history that probably explains why a 22yo would pursue him (and that’s sad).
I was in high school at the time and pretty sheltered from it. I still don’t want to live through re-litigating it again. I think if it were me I’d prefer to fade quietly into obscurity after maybe saying my piece once.
This is my take. A lot of the comments are pretty bad IMO and are so hellbent on blaming Monica that they’re missing the fact that, like you said, several things can be true at once. She was 22, which is an adult but its still pretty freaking young. She was groomed and victimized by her TEACHER. Is it any wonder she had a distorted view of relationships and sex etc? That doesn’t mean that Bill Clinton harassed her and she was against him or whatever and he used his position as POTUS to coax her into the affair – it means she was coming from a different place than many of us before she ever got to the WH.
And even if she pursued him and 100% knew what she was doing and she was the femme fatale everyone here is saying she was – she still didn’t deserve what the Republicans did to her. They didn’t do that to anyone THEY were sleeping with (I mean Newt Gingrich led the charge. NEWT. GINGRICH.)
So I can have sympathy for her while thinking she made some pretty poor choices and that Bill Clinton took full advantage of those poor choices. She made some big mistakes at 22. Most of us have made mistakes over the course of our lives, even sometimes sleeping with people we should not have. That doesn’t mean she deserved the past 25 years of being a laughingstock and being treated like total shit by the Republicans.
This, this, all this. I was in college when this scandal broke and I was very engrossed in it at the time. I even read Monica’s book and listened to all the Linda Tripp tapes. I have very mixed feelings on how it all went down, but I absolutely agree with you–she was a willing participant, but she was also very young and massively naive. I remember listening those tapes and feeling so frustrated at her because she sounded like a stage 5 clinger, but it was attributed to how young and immature she was. Clinton totally took advantage of her. In that sense, she was absolutely a victim. And what Ken Starr and his cronies did to her, and the media? Awful. It was disgusting the way she was treated. She made some lousy decisions with her life, but I don’t believe she deserved the onslaught she got in return.
Thank you, Becks.
She’s owed nothing. She was gleefully telling friends of her affair with Clinton, hence the Tripp recordings. She never took responsibility for her part in the affair. It was exciting and thrilling for her. There are no victims in this situation. Except for Chelsea Clinton. They turned an affair into ammunition against an opposing political party. And to use your age as an excuse for poor life choices is a sad thing. By that age you’re an adult, period. Poor choices were made, by both of them.
Also when asked who she voted for she commented that democrats “left a bad taste in my mouth”. Classy? Should her age still be used as an excuse?
Because Republicans Lindsey Graham and Asa Hutchinson were so good to her.
That quote is actually apocryphal.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bad-taste/
God this was embarrassing. Between Clinton and Clarence, I was ready to give America a giant enema. There are multiple perspectives insulating the Monica situation and each perspective carries some pros and cons. Everyone involved shoulders some guilt, including the out of control media, BUT what on earth could one possibly expect when seducing a President or capitulating to a young subordinate as the leader of a free nation??? It’s messy, yucky and embarrassing. I’m sorry her consequences involved such lasting damage, but when you aim high…… Bill was always a sexual douche so he was the proper target for inappropriate behavior.
This is a lesson that is as old as time, and in ye olden days, heads literally rolled over the extramarital affairs of the monarchs and the powerful.
It is eternally worth saying, over and over:
1. Marriage is a powerful institution.
2. Powerful people in a powerful institution should be treated with due consideration.
3. You can be assured of pursuing the life you intend for yourself by never, ever, ever getting involved with a married person.
This is a weirdly evangelical-Christian type of comment. There are two people in a marriage but also two people committing infidelity.
peace–I am not at all talking about “the wicked will be punished” or about the moral issues around infidelity, or even about assigning culpability.
I am saying, the costs of tangling with a married person in power this way are unequal and devastating to the less powerful party.
Lewinsky should have by all rights been allowed to move on, find employment, be financial self-supporting, have other relationships, marry and have a family, all the things she said she had wanted to do with her life.
Ahhhh ok. Sorry to misinterpret! Yes, I agree.
You do realize that married people who cheat don’t always tell the other person they are married? In a cheating situation the responsibility and blame ultimately belongs the the person in the marriage. Now if the cheating spouses girlfriend/boyfriend is an active abuser in the marriage, then that’s different.
It’s frustrating to me how many people think “blame” is a pie where we can neatly carve up into nice portions who gets what piece.
Clinton had no business sleeping with an intern, and a 22 year old starstruck one at that. The man has been creditably accused of sexual harassment by a number of women and the only reason he isn’t accused of sexual harassment here is because Lewinsky was already interested. However, by the definition of most workplaces today, his behavior would be gross.
Lewinsky had no business sleeping with Clinton. She knew he was married. She did not care. She actively courted the relationship and seems to delight in the notoriety now that the first few years of really awful treatment by the media is over.
And Hillary behaved so incredibly poorly. Her husband is a sex pest. She knew it then. She knows it now. She has no responsibility for his behavior but she does bear responsibility for how she spoke about his victims, about his consensual partners, of that business about her husband’s wandering and/or sexually harassing peen being a right wing conspiracy.
Half the reason this story had legs for so long is because Bill and Hillary lied over and over again about the seriousness of the allegations, not just with Lewinsky but Clinton’s pervasive inappropriate behaviors towards the women in his sphere.
The other half is that the Republican’s milked it for all its worth – which is interesting since Republicans have the worst track record for sexual misbehavior. In fact look at who they put on the Supreme Court.
@L84Tea — yes. Monica’s complete naïveté was her downfall. She knew what she was doing, but what 22 year old understands what a lifetime of a ruined reputation really means? She thought she was playing a power game of seduction, feeling invincible and then paid a very heavy price.
@MRS. SMITH,
Monica wasn’t naive. She was (and is) a narcissist who had a pattern of pursuing married men. It gave her an ego boost and she didn’t give a damn who she hurt. Her behaviour is not indicative of naivete but rather calculation, manipulation and complete entitlement. She grew up very well to do, had strong enough social connections to land a white house internship at 22. She’s someone who was spoiled with opportunities that an average hard working woman never had access to. To me she’s a symbol of white privilege and entitlement, nothing else.
Why are some so intent of removing Monica’s agency in all of this? She pursued him and had told friends, ahead of arriving in DC, that she wanted to be with him. Monica was 22 not 16. Women, aged 22 (and younger) make decisions all the time about whether they choose to sleep with someone or not. I remember stories about her “snapping her thong at Clinton” as she would leave the Oval Office. Clinton is a creep and was totally wrong for his relationship with her but let’s acknowledge that it was her choice to also make a bad decision.
I think this is unfair. Nobody is removing all of her agency, while plenty of comments are removing all of Clinton’s. It’s entirely possible to admit that she made questionable choices while acknowledging that if your boss is the leader of the free world, his behavior also matters, more than a small disclaimer regarding it. Furthermore, while she may have pursued him, there were plenty of secondhand sources who claimed she said many things, and that’s not necessarily the truth.
If anyone needs to apologize it’s Monica and Bill to Hilary.
As a side note, she looks great in those pics !
And Chelsea, who was probably traumatized by these events.
I am in complete agreement with Kaiser on this.
I was only 10 when this scandal broke so I didn’t have much understanding of what was happening at the time. Only that Clinton claimed to not have sex with a woman named Monica Lewinsky and then months later backtracked and finally admitted he did have relations with her. I didn’t even know what Monica looked like until I was much older and finally googled her. But from everything I know, everyone made terrible decisions and acted poorly but mostly Monica paid the price. And then as the years went by, you realize just how complicated the situation really was.
She was no innocent victim who was seduced by the president though, she openly flirted and seduced him too, it was a mutual affair. However she was young and incredibly stupid and Clinton knew better than to engage in any kind of affair with her but we all know he was a serial philanderer. She had slept with a married professor and as an idiotic young adult probably thought sleeping with the president was some amazing bucket list thing, who knows. And her stupidity was her downfall. So she was a victim of the media, the Republicans, Linda Tripp, Kenneth Starr, and whoever else was involved. I do sympathize with her there, but I can’t sympathize with her decision to go after a married man (which she did a few times). She didn’t deserve to be the punching bag for pop culture in the years that followed, but I do wonder how she thought it would go if the affair ever became public knowledge.
I think it’s admirable how she has fallen into this advocate/activist role, given she basically hid from the media for about a decade trying to leave behind the scandal. But her story is so multilayered and there’s so much nuance. She wasn’t necessarily a victim of Clinton (so #Metoo doesn’t apply), but she wasn’t not a victim either. She wasn’t a perfect victim and so it’s such a complex story to parse through.
I agree with Kaiser on this one.
“[Today] we are having conversations about power differentials in different ways. It’s not just people in power who have voices.”
Is she focussing strictly on the power imbalance angle of what happened between her and Bill? He absolutely should have steered clear of her. And that’s on him. But is she forgetting that he didn’t coerce her? That he wasn’t the one who launched the charm offensive? That she went to Washington with the goal of meeting him and having an affair with him? And that once their liaison started, she would throw tantrums if she felt anyone was preventing her from seeing him?
We can have conversations about whether her past set her up for being prone to this type of behaviour. But let’s not conflate rationalization with justification. And even if she was immature at 22, surely enough time has passed for her to look back and take responsibility for her part in this.
I agree with the posters above who expressed misgivings about infantilizing an adult woman. I fear that this is a very slippery slope especially at a time when our rights and bodily autonomy are being eroded.
“The beauty and the beast of social media is more people can be heard. I might have had a little bit of support.”
As exasperating as I found her back then, I was disheartened by how she was mistreated in the press and weaponized by Clinton’s opponents. Social media would have helped her get her side out. But unless she’d be more self-aware than she was back then, I fear she’d be seeing more beast than beauty. Her IG would be lit though.
Yes to all this. Clinton bears a lot of responsibility because of the power differential but Monica’s behaviour(her aggressive pursuit of him) also means she played a role in what happened but with such a big power gap, even with her awful behaviour, could she really consent? The way people chalk it up to her youth is wild- and truly the way we infantilize attractive white women is a lot.
Having said all that, how she was treated in the press was disgusting and sick and frankly none of her actions warranted what they did to her life.
As said elsewhere in this thread, the person I felt the worst for was Chelsea. I even feel some sympathy for Hillary- yes she knew her husband was a dog but the fact that he cheated in their literal home, brought so my crap on to their daughter, and risked what they spent their entire lives working towards must have felt like a slap to the face.
This. Forget the hound dog you chased, what about his family. Of course the hound dog should have thought about them as well.
That she’s still out there reminding us of all the tawdry behaviour (including you Ken Starr and that feeble excuse of a Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh) makes me think narcissist. Give it up and get a real life.
I think the biggest power imbalance in this story is the one between her and Linda Tripp.
Dayum, girl is HOT. Monica L. is the epitome of “Living well is the best revenge.”
Oh girl, you look fab and are rocking that cute dress, but those are some bad shoes.
I agree with Kaiser. And I think Monica is still in love with Clinton.
Clintons — Plural!