In 1998, the world watched as then-President Bill Clinton was charged with perjury and became embroiled in a high profile impeachment trial - all sparked by his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
With moments such as Clinton’s lie that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” going down in history, the proceedings have followed Lewinsky throughout her life. This year she is set to produce a new series of American Crime Story based on the events.
Interest in Lewinsky, who was an unpaid 22-year-old White House intern when she first met 49-year-old President Bill Clinton, has grown recently in the wake of the MeToo movement - reassessing the relationship between the pair - as well as the recent death of affair whistleblower Linda Tripp, who passed away of pancreatic cancer.
Clinton has since said that Lewinsky “paid quite a price” for the affair, though Lewinsky has since established herself as an anti-bullying activist and spoken openly about the “avalanche of pain and humiliation” she experienced.
Lewinsky is set to be played by Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein in the upcoming Ryan Murphy series and explained why she had decided to produce it.
“People have been co-opting and telling my part in this story for decades. In fact, it wasn't until the past few years that I've been able to fully reclaim my narrative; almost 20 years later,” she said.
"This isn't just a me problem. Powerful people, often men, take advantage of those subordinate to them in myriad ways all the time,” she said. “Many people will see this as such a story and for that reason, this narrative is one that is, regretfully, evergreen.”
When and how did Monica Lewinsky meet Bill Clinton?
In July 1995, a 21-year-old Lewinsky managed to land an unpaid internship as a White House intern during the Clinton administration.
Although it seems unlikely that an intern would have had anything to do with the president, conflict over education policy had led to a government shutdown - leaving interns like Lewinksy to take on significant work as many White House staffers were sent home.
A report by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who investigated Clinton, stated, “During the shutdown, Ms. Lewinsky worked in Chief of Staff Panetta's West Wing office, where she answered phones and ran errands. The President came to Mr. Panetta's office frequently because of the shutdown, and he sometimes talked with Ms. Lewinsky.”
“She characterised these encounters as 'continued flirtation.' According to Ms. Lewinsky, a Senior Adviser to the Chief of Staff, Barry Toiv, remarked to her that she was getting a great deal of 'face time' with the President,” it continued.
How did the Clinton affair start?
The Starr Report claimed Lewinsky and Clinton flirted - which included moments such as Lewinsky showing him “the straps of her thong underwear” as she lifted up her jacket.
On November 15, 1995, Lewinsky was invited to Clinton’s private study by the president and she testified that they had acknowledged “we were both attracted to each other” - leading the President to ask if he could kiss her and her leaving her number for him.
On the same day, she was later asked again by the president to come to his private study where they began their sexual relationship.
How long did the affair go on for?
They continued to see each other over the course of 18 months, with Lewinsky testifying they had ten sexual encounters (eight while she worked at the White House and two after she had been sent to the Pentagon).
They also spoke at length on the phone and exchanged gifts, which included Lewinsky giving him several neckties and Clinton giving her a special edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
Although Clinton ended the relationship in February 1996 on President’s Day, he later called her to his office on March 1996 where they resumed their relationship and had a sexual encounter.
Lewinsky said that she “never expected to fall in love with the President," but added, “I was surprised that I did.”
How did their affair end?
Lewinsky was later transferred to the Pentagon in 1996 after White House staff “thought she hung around the Oval Office too much and transferred her.”
“[People] were wary of his weaknesses, maybe, and . . . they didn't want to look at him and think that he could be responsible for anything, so it had to all be my fault” she later said.
In her dismissal interview with staff director Timothy Keating in April 1996, she is said to have asked to stay on at the White House with tears in her eyes.
Lewinsky said of Keating's response, “He told me I was too sexy to be working in the East Wing and that this job at the Pentagon where I'd be writing press releases was a sexier job... I was never going to see the President again. I mean, my relationship with him would be over.”
It was at the Pentagon that she met Linda Tripp while working in the public affairs office.
Lewinsky began to disclose details of her and Clinton’s relationship. Tripp, who had come forward to talk about Clinton’s alleged sexual harassment of another colleague Kathleen Willey, was grilled extensively by Clinton’s team after Lewinsky shared that she was talking to Newsweek about it.
Tripp began to record her and Lewinsky’s conversations about the affair without Lewinsky’s knowledge.
Even after her transfer, Clinton and Lewinsky continued to call one another and had phone sex (though they no longer had physical contact).
In May 1997, Clinton ended their sexual relationship and the Starr Report claimed, “Earlier in his marriage, he told her, he had had hundreds of affairs; but since turning 40, he had made a concerted effort to be faithful. He said he was attracted to Ms. Lewinsky, considered her a great person, and hoped they would remain friends. He pointed out that he could do a great deal for her. The situation, he stressed, was not Ms. Lewinsky's fault.”
What happened next?
Just three days after Clinton broke up with Lewinsky, the Supreme Court ordered that a sexual harassment case against Clinton (filed by Paula Jones) would proceed.
Jones used to work with Clinton while he was still governor of Arkansas and had filed her suit against him in 1994, though met opposition from Clinton as his lawyers attempted to have it dismissed.
In 1997, Clinton’s personal secretary Betty Currie claimed the president “was pushing us hard” to help find Lewinsky another job at the White House.
After a lengthy back and forth between Clinton, Lewinsky and Clinton’s team, she was eventually offered a job at the United Nations instead of the White House - which she turned down for a job in the private sector.
How did Monica Lewinsky become involved in the Paula Jones lawsuit?
Lewinsky was named as a potential witness for the lawsuit in 1997, which led Clinton to call her in December that year to tell her she "might have to testify under oath" as Jones’ lawyers were attempting to establish a pattern of sexual infidelity on Clinton’s part to bolster their case.
She was eventually subpoenaed. Clinton and Lewinsky began to meet to discuss the Jones case and Clinton’s personal secretary Currie later went on to help conceal gifts that Clinton had given her under her bed, which had been subpoenaed in the Jones case.
In January 1998, Lewinsky signed an affidavit stating that she had not had sexual relations with Clinton. Clinton also denied the affair in a deposition on January 17.
Meanwhile, Tripp began speaking with Paula Jones’ lawyers and word of her tapes with Lewinsky began to get out.
It was around this time that independent counsel Starr, who was investigating Clinton for his and his wife Hillary's dealings with Whitewater, found out about Tripp’s recordings of her conversations with Lewinsky.
Starr subsequently shifted the focus of his investigation to centre on Clinton's dealings with Lewinsky and Tripp was later given a wire to wear by the FBI to record additional conversations with her.
Speaking on Larry King, Tripp later recalled, “I believe it still was the right thing to do, because I believe Monica's emotional fragile state needed everything to come to a head. I do believe that. However, I picture should my daughter ever be in a situation like that, I would want the adult to make it stop somehow.”
After that, news of the Lewinsky/Clinton affair began to circulate on gossip websites and later mainstream media outlets - leading Clinton to declare on January 26 on television, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
Lewinsky also recounted in a Vanity Fair article that Starr “hustled me into a hotel room near the Pentagon and informed me that unless I cooperated with them I could face 27 years in prison” and additionally “hounded and terrorised not just [me] but my family.”
Clinton and Lewinsky were later called to testify before a grand jury and Lewinsky struck a deal with Starr, securing immunity for herself and her parents in exchange for her testimony.
She additionally gave Starr a navy dress, which featured a semen stain from Clinton that Tripp had encouraged her not to wash.
When Clinton testified, he admitted to “inappropriate intimate physical contact” with Lewinsky however claimed he had not perjured himself as he had used Jones’ lawyers’ definition of sexual relations. He then gave a televised interview on August 17 in which he apologised for his actions and admitted to the affair, saying, “It was wrong...I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that.”
After this, the Starr Report was published and became a bestseller overnight.
Based on its findings, the House launched an impeachment enquiry and looked into its charges of perjury, abuse of power, obstruction of justice and more on October 8 - leading them to allow it to move forward on three articles of impeachment. Eventually, on December 19, Clinton was impeached.
The following year on January 7, Clinton’s impeachment trial began and he was acquitted. Clinton said afterwards that he was “profoundly sorry” to Americans and Congress.
Where is Monica Lewinsky now?
Lewinsky revealed she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the scandal in an article written for Vanity Fair.
She has since gone on to become an anti-bullying advocate, speaking on programmes such as Last Week Tonight about public shame and even gave a Ted Talk on the topic.
Lewinsky has also become a prominent Twitter figure, referencing the affair on her own terms and making jokes about the situation. When Senator Marco Rubio blamed an “intern at Politico” in a tweet she responded, “blaming the intern is so 1990’s.”
Lewinsky later wrote a 2018 Vanity Fair article in which she reflected on her relationship with Clinton, through the lens of the MeToo movement. She said, “Now, at 44, I'm beginning (just beginning) to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern.”
“I'm beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot. (Although power imbalances — and the ability to abuse them — do exist even when the sex has been consensual)” she continued.
Clinton was asked the same year if he had “ever apologised” to Lewinsky, to which he responded that he had “not talked to her” and that he felt he did not owe her an apology.
He also added that he had apologised multiple times publicly.
Lewinsky also recounted a chance encounter with Starr years after the scandal, in which she ran into him.
She wrote, "'Though I wish I had made different choices back then,' I stammered, 'I wish that you and your office had made different choices, too.' In hindsight, I later realized, I was paving the way for him to apologize. But he didn’t. He merely said, with the same inscrutable smile, 'I know. It was unfortunate.'"
Following news of Tripp's cancer, Lewinsky tweeted, “no matter the past, upon hearing that Linda Tripp is very seriously ill, I hope for her recovery. I can’t imagine how difficult this is for her family.”
Lewinsky’s series of American Crime Story is set to be released on September 27, 2020.
