With "The Clinton Affair," Monica Lewinsky is ready to revisit the 1998 sex scandal that nearly unraveled Bill Clinton's presidency, and she hopes by doing so she can retire the term "Lewinsky scandal" once and for all.
"I think 20 years is enough time to carry that mantle," the former White House intern, now 45, writes in a new Vanity Fair essay published Tuesday.
In the essay, she explains what motivated her to take part in the 6 1/2-hour series, which premieres Sunday (9 EST/PST) from Emmy-winning producer Blair Foster ("Get Me Roger Stone," "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind") and Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side," "The Looming Tower").
Foster, she says, "pointed out to me during one of the tapings that almost all the books written about the Clinton impeachment were written by men. History literally being written by men. In contrast, the docuseries not only includes more women’s voices, but embodies a woman’s gaze: Two of the three main editors and four of the five executive producers are women."
Another impetus, she says, was grief: "Grief for the pain I caused others. Grief for the broken young woman I had been before and during my time in D.C., and the shame I still felt around that. Grief for having been betrayed first by someone I thought was my friend, and then by a man I thought had cared for me. Grief for the years and years lost, being seen only as 'That Woman' – saddled, as a young woman, with the false narrative that my mouth was merely a receptacle for a powerful man’s desire. (You can imagine how those constructs impacted my personal and professional life.)"
She admits she wishes she could erase her memories of her Washington years, but realizes, "in order to move forward in the life I have, I must take risks – both professional and emotional. (It’s a combustible combination.) An important part of moving forward is excavating, often painfully, what has gone before."
She adds, "When politicians are asked uncomfortable questions, they often duck and dodge by saying, That’s old news. It’s in the past. Yes. That’s exactly where we need to start to heal."
And even though Lewinsky made personal apologies to Hillary Clinton in a 1999 interview with Barbara Walters, she says that if she saw the former first lady, secretary of state and presidential candidate in person, she'd say it all over again.
"I would summon up whatever force I needed to again acknowledge to her – sincerely – how very sorry I am," she writes.
As for ever getting an apology from the ex-president himself, she says, "What feels more important to me than whether I am owed or deserving of a personal apology is my belief that Bill Clinton should want to apologize. I’m less disappointed by him, and more disappointed for him. He would be a better man for it ... and we, in turn, a better society."
