Monica Lewinsky: ‘The shame sticks to you like tar

MONICA Lewinsky has described the public humiliation she suffered after her affair with President Bill Clinton was exposed as “excruciating”, and said it brought her “very close” to attempting suicide.Now she’s a respected and perceptive anti-bullying advocate. She gives talks at Facebook, and at business conferences, on how to make the internet more compassionate, She helps out at anti-bullying organisations like Bystander Revolution, a site that offers video advice on what to do if you’re afraid to go to school, or if you’re a victim of cyber-bullying.

The 42-year-old former White House intern became a household name after her friend Linda Tripp secretly recorded conversations with Lewinsky discussing the affair and passed them on to the FBI.

That people could read the transcripts was horrific enough, but a few weeks later the audiotapes were aired on TV. The public humiliation was excruciating. Life was almost unbearable,” she told The Guardian.The Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, when a news report emerged saying then-President Bill Clinton had an affair with Lewinsky, who started flirting with the president soon after her internship began.

One day she told him “I have a crush on you” and he responded “Well, do you want to come into the back office?Other employees started to notice how much time the two spent together and she was transferred to the Pentagon, where she met Linda Tripp.

Clinton first forcefully denied the allegations, saying in January that year in a public statement: “I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me  I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.He eventually admitted in August 1998 to having an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.

I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including even my wife,” he said at the time. “I deeply regret that.Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong.It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.

Speaking about when the scandal first broke, Lewinsky said: “I felt like every layer of my skin and my identity were ripped off of me in ’98 and ’99.”It’s a skinning of sorts. You feel incredibly raw and frightened. But I also feel like the shame sticks to you like tar.She added that she never attempted suicide although “came very close” and even worked out how she would do it.