Monica Lewinsky has reemerged this week to admit to having some “very dark moments” in the wake of her Bill Clinton scandal. This comes decades after Lewinsky had an affair with Clinton while she was a 22 year-old intern in his White House in the 1990s.
Lewinsky Sounds Off
Lewinsky, 52, was just honored as the 2026 Woman of the 21st Century by the Women’s Guild Cedars-Sinai.
During a ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Lewinsky acknowledged her “extraordinary” life progression as she was welcomed into a room full of “positivity and love.” She also admitted that this was a stark contrast to the decades of “extreme negativity” that she’s experienced.
“There have been some very dark moments. I don’t want to sugar coat it,” Lewinsky said. “I know we’re at a lovely luncheon, but I think it’s so important for people to understand.“
Lewinsky was only 22 when she began an affair with Clinton, who was 49 at the time, in November of 1995. The affair was exposed when Lewinsky confided in a Pentagon co-worker, Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their conversations. These recordings were then used in Paula Jones‘ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.
“I was very surprised when I worked in the White House because I had assumed that the women who were in senior roles there, that they would all be there to boost one another,” Lewinsky said. “And it wasn’t that. And that, I think, was very eye-opening to me, aside from the things I went through in ’98.”
Lewinsky’s Public Humiliation
In January of 1998, Clinton famously denied having an affair with Lewinsky by saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” He was impeached for lying about this later that year.
The subsequent public backlash against Lewinsky was so bad that she had to go into hiding to escape the humiliation.
“I’ve done an enormous amount of energy work for 20 years,which, if there are any woo-woo people in the room or anybody who saw The Secret, you remember about this idea of energy coming toward you and negative thoughts being … energy coming toward you,” Lewinsky stated.
“I was severely impacted by having billions of strangers thinking negatively about me,” she continued. “My energetic field wasn’t ready for that. So, I think that I worked hard with that, and I feel grateful. I really shed a lot of the bitterness. I think some of it is probably also buried.”
Lewinsky has said that at the height of her scandal, she contemplated suicide. Earlier this year, she told The Times that “the public humiliation was excruciating; life was almost unbearable.”
In the decades since her scandal, themes surrounding authority and control have remained a constant in Lewinsky’s life.
“I think of power in two different ways. There’s the power that someone has and they use, that impacts other people’s power,” Lewinsky recently told Fox News. “Then there’s the power that someone has in connection to themselves and that’s a lot more like strength.”
Lewinsky Still Lives ‘In A Lot Of Fear’
Though she’s been working on herself for years, Lewinsky has said that she’s only recently gained true confidence through her hugely successful “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky” podcast.
“I still live in a lot of fear,” she said in a recent podcast episode. “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.”
In the post-#MeToo world, Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky looks worse than ever. That’s why he likely won’t be happy that she’s reemerging to speak about it once again. Only time will tell if Lewinsky continues to be a thorn in Clinton’s side in the future!