Monica Lewinsky Revisits Clinton Affair as “Abuse of Power”
Oh, splendid—another deep dive into that White House drama no one asked to rehash, yet here we are. The ever-candid Monica Lewinsky, now 51, just reminded the world that her late-’90s office fling with President Bill Clinton was more than a messy tabloid moment—it was flat-out an abuse of power, she told Elizabeth Day on her How to Fail podcast (June 25). Back when she was a 22- to 24-year-old intern, Lewinsky admits there was “limerence” and all the dizzying thrills of young love, but looking back, she sees a clear imbalance: “It was also an abuse of power,” she sighed, according to E! News. Despite the White House narrative painting her as a “bimbo,” Lewinsky insists she earned her role fair and square—first in the Clinton internship program, then the Pentagon, jetting around with the Defense Secretary’s team. “I wasn’t a dumb bimbo,” she deadpanned on How to Fail, rolling her eyes at the nonsense. She also shared tougher truths on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy show in February, insisting the real scandal was how the White House “threw a young person under the bus” while the president carried on in office. “The right way to handle a situation like that would have been to say it was nobody’s business—and to resign. Or to stay honest without scapegoating me,” she told Cooper, per transcript excerpts. Of course, when the affair surfaced, Clinton became only the second president in history to face impeachment, and Lewinsky absorbed the brunt of the public’s outrage, shame and ridicule for years—no defense brief in sight. She lamented that the “naïve other woman” trope was a White House spin that women everywhere swallowed whole. And while she’ll never deny that Clinton held the most powerful seat on the planet, Lewinsky insists her own career wouldn’t have tanked if she hadn’t been disposable fodder for political damage control. So yes, she’s still sorting through the fallout—22 years later. Did anyone expect a different moral? No? Thought so—and that, dear reader, is why we can’t have nice things.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! News, How to Fail podcast with Elizabeth Day, Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
