Monica Lewinsky
breaks silence on Clinton
affair
http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/women/Monica-Lewinsky-breaks-silence-on-Clinton-affair/-/1950830/2306724/-/o1hdqk/-/index.html
WASHINGTON
Former White House
intern Monica Lewinsky broke her silence Tuesday about her illicit 1990s affair
with president Bill Clinton, saying she wants to reclaim the narrative of
events that brought her global humiliation.
Lewinsky, now 40, was
in her early twenties when she became the infamous beret-wearing muse who
engaged in sexual relations with the president and then endured a colossal
backlash that nearly drove her to suicide.
After years of being
turned away by potential employers, ridiculed online, and confronted by
accusers as "that woman" who performed oral sex in the Oval Office,
she decided to write her version of events in this month's Vanity Fair
magazine.
"It's time to
burn the beret and bury the blue dress," Lewinsky wrote in a lengthy essay
in the magazine.
"I am determined
to have a different ending to my story. I've decided, finally, to stick my head
above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my
past."
She said her radio
silence was so complete for nearly a decade that rumors swirled that the Clintons must have paid
her off to keep her quiet.
"Nothing could
be further from the truth," she insisted.
It is time to stop
"tiptoeing around my past — and other people's futures," she said, in
a likely reference to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's expected
White House run in 2016.
News of the Lewinsky
affair broke in 1998 and became an all-consuming scandal that nearly crashed
the Clinton
presidency. He was impeached by the House of Representatives that December but
was acquitted by the Senate.
While the Clintons moved on, Lewinsky became an American outcast,
even as she came to regret one of the most famous political affairs in US history.
"Sure, my boss
took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a
consensual relationship," she wrote.
"Any 'abuse'
came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his
powerful position," she added.
In the scandal's
wake, Lewinsky said, she "turned down offers that would have earned me
more than $10 million, because they didn't feel like the right thing to
do."
Instead she went back
to school, lived abroad and then applied to various communications and
marketing positions. But the employers balked, claiming her "history"
made her the wrong person for the job.
The anxiety made her
suicidal at times, she admitted, noting that the shame and scorn thrown at her
caused her mother to "fear that I would be literally humiliated to
death."
A 'Scarlet-A
albatross'
Her suffering took on
new meaning in 2010, following the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers University student who was shown on the
Internet kissing another man.
As one of the first
major figures to endure global online humiliation, Lewinsky said she wanted to
work with victims of cyber-bullying and harassment like Tyler.
"Perhaps by
sharing my story... I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of
humiliation," she said.
But while she
pronounced she should no longer remain stuck in the "Clinton universe," she admitted to often
thinking about Hillary, and whether the former first lady will make another run
for the White House.
During Clinton's 2008 bid for
the Democratic presidential nomination, which she lost to eventual President
Barack Obama, Lewinsky was drawn into the political maelstrom once more.
In recent months,
Lewinsky said, she has grown "fearful of 'becoming an issue' should (Clinton) decide to ramp
up her campaign."
And while the former
intern said she would "give anything" to undo what happened, she
recalled how publicly confronting her past on a television special only ensured
that "shame would once again be hung around my neck like a Scarlet-A
albatross.
"Believe me,
once it's on, it is a bitch to take off."