I don't know how many of us are actually nostalgic for the circus that erupted in 1998. But Monica has decided to speak out for the first time and I kind of felt interested in her voice - because whatever your politics, whatever your morals, she was to my mind railroaded and wronged.
I don't care what they did or didn't do, what defines sexual relations and what does not. But she came out of that story much worse than he did. He is paid millions to speak. She can't land a job. He is about to become a grandfather. She? In that sordid he-said-she-said, his words carried much more weight. He is beloved and admired. She is the butt - or the knee - of a stale joke.
Excerpts from Monica's Vanity Fair piece are below, at the very end of this post.
Anyways, 1998 was also my second year in the USA. I suppose it was a time of scandals - I landed into Diana's death and then saw the Clinton impeachment erupt. And this, appropriately enough, was the song I listened to on a loop that year (don't ask!):
So a blue dress, eh ladies? A work dress that can go out? No pattern, but maybe an infusion of another color? And not just the standard dress, that bodycon snug thing that we've all seen a million times on everyone from Sheryl Sandberg to whoever?
Bright, ultramarine blue is a perfect color for summer. But darker navy in a crisp cut works fantastically well also. Either hue is a bit hard to pull off in the winter because you are always faced with the conundrum of hose and shoes - nude? black? With bare legs and sandals, however, wearing blue is much simpler.
DREAM:
Saks, and lust:
Barney's:
Shopbop:
MyTheresa:
WISH:
Shopbop:
Shopbop:
WANT:
Monica Lewinsky Writes About Her Affair with President Clinton
Monica Lewinsky writes in Vanity Fair for the first time about her affair with President Clinton: “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.”
After 10 years of virtual silence (“So silent, in fact,” she writes, “that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth”), Lewinsky, 40, says it is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past—and other people’s futures. 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. (What this will cost me, I will soon find out.)”
Clearing the Air
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.”
Job Hunting
After the scandal, writes Lewinsky, “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.”
Correcting the Record
Lewinsky writes that she is still recognized every day, and her name shows up daily in press clips and pop-culture references. She admits that she used to refer to Maureen Dowd as “Moremean Dowdy,” but “today, I’d meet her for a drink.” And she requests one correction of Beyoncé, regarding the lyrics to her recent hit “Partition”: “Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.’”
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).’”
Why She’s Going Public
When Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers freshman who was secretly streamed via Webcam kissing another man, committed suicide in September 2010, Lewinsky writes, she was brought to tears, but her mother was especially distraught: “She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal. The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” Lewinsky clarifies that she has never actually attempted suicide, but had strong suicidal temptations several times during the investigations and during one or two periods after.
Lewinsky writes that following Clementi’s tragedy “my own suffering took on a different meaning. Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation. The question became: How do I find and give a purpose to my past?” She also says that, when news of her affair with Clinton broke in 1998, not only was she arguably the most humiliated person in the world, but, “thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.” Her current goal, she says, “is to get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”
