Politics
Monica Lewinsky Recalls First Intimate Experience Post-Bill Clinton Affair: ‘Wanted to Get It Over With’
Monica Lewinsky reveals she had a hard time reclaiming her sexuality following her infamous affair with then-president Bill Clinton.
More than 30 years after the activist, now 52, began an intimate relationship with the former United States president — who is 27 years her senior — she told British newspaper The Times, “The first time I had sex post-’98, I just wanted to get it over with so I knew it wasn’t a stigma that would be with me for the rest of my life.”
The sex scandal rocked the White House in 1998, when Lewinsky was 24. Clinton, now 79, initially denied the affair, but upon further investigation, he was impeached. The politician was eventually acquitted on both articles of impeachment.
Looking back, the former White House intern said that she thinks “the most powerful man in the world standing up and saying, ‘I did not have sex with that woman’” has led her “to deal with some baggage in that area.”
“I wonder sometimes about the impact it still has on me,” she reflected.
Details of their sexual encounters were made public in the Starr Report, a federal government report by independent counsel Ken Starr concerning his investigation of Clinton, and Lewinsky said she was shamed for years following the headline-making affair.
The Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky podcast host revealed that the public humiliation following the fallout “was excruciating” — and while she has stated that their relationship was consensual, she feels the dynamic was “a gross abuse of power. Full stop.”
“Life was almost unbearable,” she admitted.
These days, she said, “It has got a lot easier the more I’ve been able to fill out my own life, with me as my true self.”
Clinton is still married to wife Hillary Clinton, whom he wed in 1975.
