Guess who’s back?
Reminding us all of those salacious political scandals of the 90’s, former White House intern and current scholar of social psychology, Monica Lewinsky, is breaking her 10 years of silence to tell the world her side of the presidential affair that’s still making its rounds in comedy sketches today.
Lewinsky, who was caught having an affair with President Bill Clinton in 1998, opens up in the newest issue of Vanity Fair about the relationship that led to President Clinton’s impeachment.
“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.” She also says: “I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened.”
Lewinsky, who mentioned that her boss took advantage of her, also makes sure to point out that the affair was consensual. According to Vanity Fair:
Maintaining that her affair with Clinton was one between two consenting adults, Lewinsky writes that it was the public humiliation she suffered in the wake of the scandal that permanently altered the direction of her life: “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 also discussed the challenges she’s faced applying to jobs and furthering her career:
“I turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do.” After moving between London (where she got her master’s degree in social psychology at the London School of Economics), Los Angeles, New York, and Portland, Oregon, she interviewed for numerous jobs in communications and branding with an emphasis on charity campaigns, but, “because of what potential employers so tactfully referred to as my ‘history,’” she writes, “I was never ‘quite right’ for the position. In some cases, I was right for all the wrong reasons, as in ‘Of course, your job would require you to attend our events.’ And, of course, these would be events at which press would be in attendance.”
Then there was the bit about Beyonce’s record, Partition, in which the songstress sings “He popped all my buttons, and he ripped my blouse/He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown:”
“Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d,'” she writes.
And about her view on Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Lewinsky responds to reports made public in February that Hillary Clinton, during the 1990s, had characterized her as a “narcissistic loony toon” in correspondence with close friend Diane Blair. “My first thought,” Lewinsky writes, “as I was getting up to speed: If that’s the worst thing she said, I should be so lucky. Mrs. Clinton, I read, had supposedly confided to Blair that, in part, she blamed herself for her husband’s affair (by being emotionally neglectful) and seemed to forgive him. Although she regarded Bill as having engaged in ‘gross inappropriate behavior,’ the affair was, nonetheless, ‘consensual (was not a power relationship).’”
I mean, how Olivia Pope and Mellie Grant is this?
Read Lewinsky’s full story on May 8th in the digital edition or pick up a copy of the magazine when it hits stands on May 13.
SOURCE: Vanity Fair | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
