Monica Lewinsky in Vanity Fair: Time to burn beret
Monica Lewinsky is taking to the pages of Vanity Fair to address her affair with former President Bill Clinton, writing that she avoided the spotlight for fear of becoming an issue during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, but adding that the time has come to stop “tiptoeing around my past — and other people’s futures.”
“I remained virtually reclusive, despite being inundated with press requests. I put off announcing several media projects in 2012 until after the election,” Lewinsky, 40, writes in the magazine’s upcoming June issue, according to a press release Tuesday. “And recently I’ve found myself gun-shy yet again, fearful of ‘becoming an issue’ should [Hillary Clinton] decide to ramp up her campaign. But should I put my life on hold for another 8 to 10 years?”
Lewinsky adds that her planned media projects fell through and also denies reports that she had secured a $12 million tell-all book deal.
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In the brief excerpts posted by the magazine and the press release from Vanity Fair, Lewinsky dismisses claims her decade of silence was because the “Clintons must have paid me off,” saying nothing is further from the truth and she explains why she has decided to speak out.
“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.),” she writes.
“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” adds Lewinsky, who is lying on a couch and wearing a white dress in the photo with the excerpts.
Lewinsky also addresses the recently released files of Hillary Clinton’s close friend, Diane Blair, in which the then-first lady reportedly called Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony toon.”
“If that’s the worst thing she said, I should be so lucky,” Lewinsky writes. “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.”
Lewinsky adds, “Hillary Clinton wanted it on record that she was lashing out at her husband’s mistress. She may have faulted her husband for being inappropriate, but I find her impulse to blame the Woman — not only me, but herself — troubling.”
Lewinsky gained national attention in 1998 following news of her affair with Clinton while she was an intern in the White House. She writes, “Sure, my boss took advantage of me,” but adds that she considered it a consensual relationship.
“Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position,” Lewinsky writes.
Lewinsky says that she “deeply regret[s]” the scandal, which rocked Clinton’s presidency after he initially denied the relationship, leading to impeachment by the House and later acquittal in the Senate.
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“I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened,” Lewinsky writes.
Lewinsky reveals that it was the 2010 suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, after a video secretly filmed of him kissing another man was posted online, that motivated her to go public now. Because of Clementi’s story, Lewinsky writes, her own mother “was reliving 1998.”
“She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal,” Lewinsky says. “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 explains that she never attempted suicide but “had strong suicidal temptations” during the investigations and afterward.
“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?” Lewinsky writes.
(PHOTOS: Bill Clinton’s life and career)
Lewinsky also says that because of the Drudge Report, her humiliation went global and that her goal now is to work with victims of online abuse and harassment.
“Thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet,” Lewinsky writes.
Meanwhile, she also had a suggestion for Beyonce, who recently referenced the affair on the single “Partition,” from her most recent album.
“Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d,” Lewinsky writes.
The Vanity Fair issue will be available in a digital edition on May 8 and on newsstands May 13.
A request for comment from the Clintons’ spokespeople was not immediately returned.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/monica-lewinsky-in-vanity-fair-time-to-burn-beret-106387.html#ixzz30zjy63y9
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/monica-lewinsky-in-vanity-fair-time-to-burn-beret-106387.html#ixzz30zjQrLqU
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