Monica Lewinsky: An Intern vs. The President

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Daddy Gang, picture this.

Speaker 1 You just got one of the most prestigious internships in the country, and you feel like your career is about to take off.

Speaker 1 You're so excited to be working alongside your boss, who is without a doubt, the most important person. And everyone loves and admires this man.

Speaker 1 One day he starts to show you attention. He even begins to flirt with you.
And one thing leads to another and you guys end up in a full-blown secret relationship.

Speaker 1 For a while, everything's great. He's giving you gifts.
He's making you feel special.

Speaker 1 And you confide in your coworker telling her everything about the relationship.

Speaker 1 But then one day, you're at the mall.

Speaker 1 And the FBI surrounds you.

Speaker 1 They know about you and your boss's relationship because your coworker secretly recorded your conversations and turned them over to the FBI.

Speaker 1 They tell you if you don't cooperate,

Speaker 1 you will go to jail.

Speaker 1 Suddenly, every explicit detail of you and your married boss's relationship is released to the public.

Speaker 1 Next thing you know, your face is on the cover of every newspaper and every news channel is talking about you.

Speaker 1 They call you a slut and a whore. They criticize your body and they embarrass you every single day for decades to come.
You're not allowed to talk to your friends about it.

Speaker 1 You can barely leave your house. Your name and reputation

Speaker 1 are completely ruined and your life crumbles before your eyes.

Speaker 1 Daddy Gang, this is a true story. This is Monica Lewinsky's story.

Speaker 1 When Monica Lewinsky was 22 years old, she was an intern at the White House, and she ended up in a two-year relationship with her boss, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Speaker 1 Their relationship was exposed to the public after Linda Tripp, a woman Monica trusted as a close friend, secretly recorded their phone calls and handed them over to the FBI.

Speaker 1 After that moment, Monica's life was changed forever. She became the sole focus of a massive investigation that resulted in Bill Clinton's impeachment and her very public downfall.

Speaker 1 Despite, and I want to emphasize this, despite the 27-year age gap and a clear abuse of power from the president,

Speaker 1 Monica was the one who was ripped apart in the media.

Speaker 1 Her name became synonymous with blowjobs, and she was relentlessly slut-shamed, body-shamed, and publicly humiliated for years.

Speaker 1 Daddy Gang, unfortunately, as women, we are

Speaker 1 way too familiar with the double standards of how men get treated in this world versus how women get treated.

Speaker 1 While Bill Clinton still gets to embrace and enjoy his life in the public eye, Monica has spent years working through the lasting effects of this trauma.

Speaker 1 So now it is Monica's turn to reclaim her name and share her side of the story.

Speaker 1 What is up, Daddy Gang?

Speaker 2 It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

Speaker 1 Monica Lewinsky, welcome to Call Her Daddy. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Alex.

Speaker 1 I am so happy we're finally meeting. It's been a long time coming.
I've been looking forward to this conversation for a very, very long time.

Speaker 1 I think there's so much that we're going to talk about today that a lot of the women that listen to my show will be able to resonate with and also learn from. So thank you for taking the time.

Speaker 1 How are you doing?

Speaker 1 I'm good.

Speaker 2 I'm a little nervous. I still get nervous with these kinds of things, but in general, I'm good.
I'm excited. It's a

Speaker 2 It's a very busy,

Speaker 2 it's a time, as you know, launching a podcast.

Speaker 1 It's, it's a lot more than i ever could have imagined that's what i was gonna say congratulations thank you you are launching this podcast obviously first

Speaker 1 you survived being the face of a global scandal when you were 24 years old yeah now you're launching this podcast called reclaiming with monica lewinski And basically, you are discussing what it means to take back your name.

Speaker 1 Why did you want to do this now?

Speaker 2 Well, it felt, it kind of felt for me like it was the next step for my own reclaiming and my own experiences of having lost my narrative almost my life at 24 and what that journey or process has been like to come back that in many ways that's in the bones of the show.

Speaker 2 I think this idea of

Speaker 2 losing something and getting it back.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about it. Your life completely changed once the news broke of your relationship with President Clinton.
Can you take me to the day

Speaker 1 the world finds out about this?

Speaker 1 You find out that the world knows. Where were you and how did you find out?

Speaker 2 So just to reel it back a few days,

Speaker 2 I found out about the investigation several days before the rest of the world did. There was

Speaker 2 a sting operation that happened in a shopping mall.

Speaker 2 And then I was up in, there was a Ritz Carlton attached to the shopping mall, and I was in the hotel room, really

Speaker 2 realizing that what felt like my life was over, certainly my life was going to change, and that I was threatened with jail and

Speaker 2 essentially told if I didn't cooperate and wear a wire, that I would go to jail for 27 years. So,

Speaker 2 and so I kind of saw this train starting to barrel down the tracks. And I really felt like the 21st, January 21st, opening the door.
I was living in the Watergate apartment complex with my mom.

Speaker 2 And so, I remember opening the door. And these were in the days where people would get a newspaper delivered.
And in DC, it was always several, like the Post and the New York Times.

Speaker 2 And so, and I remember seeing my name above the fold and the, um, in the investigation and, um,

Speaker 2 looking down the hall and seeing the exact same newspaper outside everybody else's door. And it was, um, it was shocking.
It was terrifying. And, um,

Speaker 2 I didn't,

Speaker 2 I didn't actually know how to process anything. And, and really, it was a moment where life as I knew it was over.

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Speaker 1 One, my heart just breaks for you because I'm thinking about myself when I was 24 and I'm thinking about all the women that are watching when you're 24 years old. Like

Speaker 1 your frontal lobe is still not fully developed.

Speaker 2 100%. You are

Speaker 1 in a situation that, like, how would you know how to respond? That you're saying they're coming to you and saying, if you don't wear this wire, you're going to go to jail.

Speaker 1 Like, were you able to confide in at least like your mom? Like, did you have to hold all of this by yourself in that moment?

Speaker 2 Well, I, I think the moment in the um hotel, so in the hotel room, they wouldn't let me call anybody at first. So, um, and I had a pager.

Speaker 2 So, my mom kept paging me.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 eventually I said, I was like, look, if you don't let me call my mom, she's going to really start to worry. So they finally, you know, they all huddled.
There were a whole bunch of them.

Speaker 2 And they were in this connecting room to the hotel.

Speaker 2 And that my the room I was in, the connecting hotel room had a whole bunch of other FBI agents in it and lawyers from the independent counsel's office. And so

Speaker 2 they finally said, okay, you can call your mom. And these are in the days of, you know, a handheld phone.
So I'm holding the phone and the agent had his finger over the hang up button.

Speaker 2 And so it was this, you know, you just begin to understand

Speaker 2 subtly,

Speaker 2 maybe not so subtle, but the kind of nonverbal ways that you're starting to understand how much trouble you're in.

Speaker 2 When I had to go to the bathroom, they went in because there was a phone in the bathroom, they took the receiver out of the wall. So it was, um, but eventually I was

Speaker 2 allowed to go

Speaker 2 ask for my mom, ask for my mom because they wouldn't.

Speaker 2 There was a point where they all came in the room. This had been a few hours, and I had

Speaker 2 kind of refused to cooperate still at that point. And

Speaker 2 they had really, they sort of sent in the heavy. And at that point, it was

Speaker 2 the kind of the pressure tactics. And so I basically said, I can't make a decision unless I talk to my mom.
So they let me, finally let me call my mom. And

Speaker 2 then she came down from New York and

Speaker 2 was

Speaker 2 so I was waiting for her to come down.

Speaker 2 And then she called my dad, who was at a medical conference and with his best friend who was a who is a malpractice attorney which is how i ended up with a malpractice attorney as my first attorney there's a level of like we can't fathom what as a young woman you were feeling in that like pretty terrifying experience of all these people telling you what you needed to do you don't have a chance to think for yourself you can call a lawyer i had asked to call a lawyer so from moment one because i think we all um you know we all know from tv and the movies right like when it happens in TV and the movies,

Speaker 2 usually a man comes and flashes their badge. You're like, I'm not talking to you without my lawyer.

Speaker 2 And they said, well, that's fine, but you won't be able to get as much information and help yourself as much. And so, and then I was actively discouraged from getting a lawyer.
And

Speaker 2 I mean, I remember very distinctly the moment of it sinking in about

Speaker 2 what it would mean for this to come out and impact my family. You know, so I had a younger brother in college, my dad's upstanding doctor in the community, you know, my mom

Speaker 2 has her own world too, and my stepmom. And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 that and the and the kind of shame and knowing that I had I had felt very responsible in that point too,

Speaker 2 because I knew I had talked about about things that

Speaker 2 it was expected I would not have talked about them.

Speaker 1 The media attention, there's paparazzi outside at all times. Like, what were you doing every day? Like, were you going stir crazy? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was, I was, well, first I was obsessed with the case.

Speaker 2 I think, too, just to paint a little bit of a landscape of what the media,

Speaker 2 you know, what the media life was like, because we have a sense of how things are today with with the um

Speaker 2 how we could get inundated with a story online with social media. Now there are eight bajillion outlets.
But what it meant back then was

Speaker 2 this story was actually instead of a story having legs for a week, which is considered a long time in today's world. I mean, it was a year, you know, it was a year of coverage.

Speaker 2 In the first 10 days of the investigation, the Washington Post alone had published 127 articles. So that's like 12 articles a day on just this story.

Speaker 2 So it was, and that was one news outlet, and this was global.

Speaker 1 Can you explain

Speaker 1 initially, once this all broke, how

Speaker 1 right off the bat was the media portraying you?

Speaker 2 Oh, I think for five seconds, it was sympathetic. And

Speaker 2 maybe after about a week, once the White House got in gear,

Speaker 2 I was very quickly painted as

Speaker 2 a stalker, a whore,

Speaker 2 mentally unstable, a bimbo,

Speaker 2 both the pursuer in this and also not attractive enough to be pursued.

Speaker 2 And really there was a creation of a version of me that I didn't recognize and my friends and family didn't recognize.

Speaker 2 And that's what happens when you have a power imbalance in

Speaker 2 a story where media is

Speaker 2 so integral to it unfolding.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine the feeling of like for a second being like, well, that's, yeah, I guess that's what happened. Oh my God, wait, that, that's not me.
How are they, how are they?

Speaker 1 Why are they calling me a horror? Why are they calling me a slutter? How am I the pursuer? Like, I, what, can you explain how your

Speaker 1 the name calling and the slut shaming slowly started to chip away at the

Speaker 1 way you felt about yourself? Yeah,

Speaker 2 well, I, I think, um, I can't say this for,

Speaker 2 you know, for everybody who gets involved in a relationship with

Speaker 2 someone who's, I'm trying to think of the right way to say it, but it's like, I think not everybody who has an affair feels this way, but I think a lot of people, especially young women who get involved in affairs,

Speaker 2 it already starts with a lack of self-esteem and self-worth. So I already had issues.
It was this,

Speaker 2 it's kind of your worst nightmare of like all the all the worst things that you think about yourself and say to yourself, you then start to have reflected and amplified by the whole world.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 it was, if it hadn't been for my family continuing to remind me of my true self.

Speaker 2 And then eventually, when I was able to have my friends come in, I don't think I would have been able to make it through. I think there were really sort of two parts of me.
There was

Speaker 2 both this more damaged, younger part of me who was soaking up all the negativity and it was um like a tsunami and just making a bad situation worse and then there was a you know

Speaker 2 maybe a future version of me or a um

Speaker 2 like a higher self or whatever who who was angry who started to get angry so it was there were times that i was angry or frustrated i was so humiliated once you got out of this isolation essentially, I guess we could call it, right?

Speaker 1 How did

Speaker 1 people in your life treat you? And did you see a difference in the way that, like, men versus women treated you? Like, was there a difference?

Speaker 2 I think what was interesting

Speaker 2 that I started to see

Speaker 2 in the public arena

Speaker 2 was

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 it very sadly, it was a lot of women who said worse things about me than the men.

Speaker 2 The men told a lot of jokes, right? So the late night hosts.

Speaker 2 I think when Jay Leno retired,

Speaker 2 some media

Speaker 2 boop-de-boop, whatever organization

Speaker 2 had done a study and

Speaker 2 listed the top 10 targets, his top 10 targets of his late night show. And I was on that list.
And so, and I was the only person who wasn't a public figure in this, you know, these are, um,

Speaker 2 so it was, I think the men told the jokes, the women sort of eviscerated me.

Speaker 2 And, um, and look, also, let's, let's recognize that while there were so many ways that

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 Bill's behavior was more reprehensible than mine,

Speaker 2 I did make mistakes. So I, you know, I think we see it very differently now.
And even through that lens, I still made mistakes.

Speaker 2 I still did things that were wrong.

Speaker 1 I think I've recognized, and I think a lot of women can experience too, especially with media now, is like,

Speaker 1 which we'll get to about the double standard, because yes, you made the mistake, but I feel like there's also a conversation online of just like,

Speaker 1 but the person within the marriage is the one that truly has the right and the is supposed to be the loyal one. And I find that we are always crucifying the other woman.

Speaker 1 And then there's a level of complexity of there is a power imbalance of you are 22 and this man is 49. So there's so much complexity of it makes me sad for you that women tearing you down.

Speaker 1 I get it with an affair. I think it's a trigger point for a lot of women.
Yeah. The way that they could identify whether they had been cheated on by their husbands.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 There's everyone's coming at it from the angle that they can personally relate to or their fears or their insecurities. But the

Speaker 1 outbreak essentially from all these women towards you, in my opinion, like it's devastating because now I think hopefully, like, do you feel a difference when women talk to you about it today versus back then?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Well, I mean, it was, I think that it really was the younger generation.

Speaker 2 When I wrote my first person essay for Vanity Fair in 2014, it was

Speaker 2 your generation and the younger generations that really insisted on reevaluating this story because you were all coming to it with just the facts, not having gone through the brainwashing or lived through that media lens and bringing different perspectives that happen throughout generations, right?

Speaker 2 From generations. And so it was really interesting to have this front row seat to observe in the very beginning of the article coming out.
It was sort of the same voices saying the same thing.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know, go away. You had your 15 minutes.
And then it was the younger generation, the younger journalists, the younger women journalists who were starting to say, hold up.

Speaker 2 You know, all the things that you just said about the power differentials,

Speaker 2 both from age and within the resources, resources of both money and power, and

Speaker 2 kind of, I don't know, people who work for you who are able to disseminate information. I had to, you know, hire lawyers.
I'd never done any of those things.

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Speaker 1 The White House basically left you out to dry after the president made a public statement claiming he never had sexual relations with you. How did you feel having to watch that and hear him say that?

Speaker 2 You know, in the moment,

Speaker 2 I was

Speaker 2 split because

Speaker 2 I felt so guilty.

Speaker 2 I felt so guilty for everything.

Speaker 2 I felt like this having become public was my fault. Why? That I had, because I had confided in Linda.
And so if I had not confided in her,

Speaker 2 I felt as if this wouldn't have become public. And

Speaker 2 so there was an enormous amount of guilt. I didn't want him to lose his job.
So there was a part of me that felt, good, deny it. This is what you should do.
You know, that sort of a thing.

Speaker 2 And then there was a part of me that

Speaker 2 was so humiliated. And

Speaker 2 to kind of have the most powerful man in the world saying that,

Speaker 2 you know, basically your damaged goods like is

Speaker 2 not something, not something you want as a 51-year-old woman and not something you you want as a 24-year-old woman.

Speaker 1 The White House, like you referenced earlier, tried to frame you as this like unstable stalker. But what the evidence then went on to reveal was the president called you often, gave you gifts.

Speaker 1 How did you,

Speaker 1 at the end of the day, during all this, reconcile what people were saying about your relationship and then what you knew to be true and what you lived with this person?

Speaker 2 It was,

Speaker 2 well, it was gaslighting, you know. So I,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I think that was what I experienced on

Speaker 2 a pretty large scale. And it was,

Speaker 2 it was devastating, you know, it was devastating at the time. And I think what,

Speaker 2 you know, what we see now in today's world, and as a grown woman, I hate to break it to any 24-year-olds listening to this because I know from 21 to 20, like 25, you think you know everything.

Speaker 2 You're like, I'm a fucking adult now. I know everything.

Speaker 2 I'm so sorry to tell you. You will look back on this time and be like, oh,

Speaker 2 little 20-year-old me.

Speaker 2 Yep, no. So I,

Speaker 2 you know, I thought it was something it wasn't. And

Speaker 2 my feelings were real.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it was

Speaker 2 very frustrating and painful

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 have people talking about this

Speaker 2 in a way that was untrue.

Speaker 1 In the midst of all of this, we're talking about how you're reading things online about yourself, you're watching the news, they're calling you a whore and they're slut shaming you and they're calling you unstable and mentally unstable.

Speaker 1 And you're, you're seeing all of this. Did you ever have a moment during all of this where you started to doubt yourself and you started to feel like you were going a little crazy?

Speaker 2 Oh, 100%.

Speaker 2 I think that there were,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 right. That's the whole.
the whole goal of gaslighting, right? So, I mean, I don't think the White House's intention was to gaslight me.

Speaker 2 I think the intention was to stay in power and to get out of legal jeopardy. But that's, you know, I think that is the core of being gaslit is you do start to doubt yourself.

Speaker 1 I also think what I want to get into talking about too is like, as a young person, when you're going through something traumatic,

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 understanding of it in the moment is that. And then you're also somewhat in fight or flight and you're like trying to digest it in any capacity you can.

Speaker 1 And then as time goes on, you're able to with time in a beautiful way, start to actually look at it a little bit more objectively as time goes on because you're farther away from it.

Speaker 1 So I can imagine like the way that you felt about it in the moment, you now have different perspectives. And that's okay.
And I think there's like a lot of shame of people who go through these.

Speaker 1 traumatic moments in their life where they're people are like, well, how did you feel in that exact moment? You're like, I don't know. I need to process it.
I need, I need time to think.

Speaker 1 And I can imagine people asking you questions, paparazzi being outside.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, yeah, being up on a stand, it's like you didn't, you knew the truth, but you also had to protect your like mental sanity of like, I need time to heal and to digest the fact that I thought I was in this relationship.

Speaker 1 Now it's out to the world.

Speaker 1 What is happening? Right. Like, it's a lot.
Yeah. Um, what was your rock-bottom moment in all of this?

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh, there were many.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 2 it's interesting. In the moment,

Speaker 2 the rock bottom moment was probably

Speaker 2 it was several months into the investigation.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I guess whatever, the layering of whatever had come out in the news that day, whatever it was, it was just too much.

Speaker 2 And I had remembered thinking, okay, I was able to, the first two weeks of the investigation, I didn't have a therapist, I couldn't go on medication.

Speaker 2 And eventually, I was able to get a therapist who had to be a forensic psychologist who was amazing. Dr.
Susan, I'm still grateful to her today.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I remember thinking,

Speaker 2 okay,

Speaker 2 I'm going to call her. And if she answers, then I'm staying.
And if she doesn't, I'm out.

Speaker 2 So I think for me, that was rock bottom.

Speaker 2 And that, again, just kind of

Speaker 2 this, the, the, the maelstrom of media and 24-hour news and the internet, you know, this,

Speaker 2 this, the report coming out was the first time that you missed history being made if you didn't have access to the internet.

Speaker 2 Like Google had just launched.

Speaker 2 Web traffic doubled overnight. Like, it's just, this is, those are the kinds of things that we just can't even fathom now.
Right. I mean, and, and this was all pre-social media, but

Speaker 2 all the news outlets had

Speaker 2 like www representation and comment sections and things like that. So

Speaker 2 that was,

Speaker 2 you know, that was a moment where I think, I don't know, sorry, I'm babbling a bit, but you're doing great.

Speaker 2 I don't, you know, I don't know if you ever had anything like this when you were growing up, but I had a couple of different moments in grade school where it was like,

Speaker 2 I did something embarrassing, and that feeling of like, I don't want to go to school. The whole class knows, the whole grade knows, everybody's going to this and that.

Speaker 2 And so, that's one level of what we experience.

Speaker 2 Or if I'm at a dinner party and I knock over, I don't drink anymore, but if I knocked over a glass of red wine on the white tablecloth, you know, you're mortified in front of this group and you're able to draw a mental perimeter around that.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 what I experienced, and now what why I care so much about anti-bullying with young people, because I understand what this is online and with social media, there is no border.

Speaker 2 And you literally, it literally feels like the entire world is laughing at you.

Speaker 2 And it is devastating.

Speaker 1 I appreciate you explaining it like that because I never thought about it.

Speaker 1 Like when you're in that restaurant and you spill the wine, you go home that night and you envision those exact faces at that table.

Speaker 1 And you're like, oh my God, I hope they they forget this i hope that like but you have a visual right and what you're describing

Speaker 1 if anything yeah you have like the most real horrific lived experience of what now

Speaker 1 so many kids are living online which is this like unseen

Speaker 1 beast out there that is talking about you, that is taunting you, that is speaking about you. And they've never met you.
They don't know you. They don't know your character.

Speaker 1 They're just taking what they've seen, glimpses online. Like, didn't they even just like use your passport photo when they?

Speaker 2 Oh my God, my work passport photo. Jesus, it was the word

Speaker 1 all manipulated.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Like, who wants their passport photo? And it's all, but that's so media of to train someone to believe something about yourself.

Speaker 1 In those rock bottom moments that you just shared with me, like

Speaker 1 having the weight of truly the world on you, of people talking about you,

Speaker 1 and you were contemplating, is it easier to just

Speaker 1 not be here? What kept you going?

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 2 call them moments of grace. And so I think if you have that moment of grace, and the,

Speaker 2 I don't know that beauty is the right word, but the beauty of having one moment of grace is that somewhere lodged in the back of your mind will always be that experience of having had that grace, you get through the moment and things get better.

Speaker 2 It It doesn't always just continue better and better for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 But once you've, you know, and that's, it's especially why I worry so much about young people, because they haven't had enough life experience to like now at 51,

Speaker 2 when

Speaker 2 something,

Speaker 2 you know, bad happens and feels devastating. I have a whole folder of times that I've had fucked up thing happen, I'm devastated, dah, dah, dah, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 And then it got better, you know, and now I, I panic even less and less, which is amazing. I'm so grateful for that.

Speaker 2 So yeah, don't, don't let young people listening, don't let anybody tell you it is not great to get older because your 50s are fucking amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're a long, long time to get there, girl, but it's amazing to feel so comfortable with yourself.

Speaker 1 And to know what to expect, know how you react, know what upsets you, know what you can get through, like your threshold, you start to learn more and more.

Speaker 2 Boy, I think you, I think really, and maybe women of older generations weren't able to do this, but at least how I feel is

Speaker 2 I know the operating manual to me, you know, and that is, that is one of the most empowering things I think anybody can have, but especially a woman.

Speaker 1 It is so heartbreaking because you weren't the only one that participated in this relationship and yet you were the one who objectively took the hardest hit.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you ever enter the anger stage where you were like, fuck this?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it, it, um, it took me a really long time. Um, and

Speaker 2 like, I was not until 2010.

Speaker 2 So this 1998 to 2010, there were, I was, I would have moments of, of being angry, but it, I didn't realize how much much I had lost until I came out of graduate school and I couldn't get a job.

Speaker 2 And that,

Speaker 2 and also, I think at the point where I was because I was

Speaker 2 in my early 30s. So now all of my friends have gotten married.
Most of them have kids. Some of them are even like going on to their second marriages, you know, second and third kids.

Speaker 2 And I'm still, I have nothing, you know, or that feeling of nothing. And,

Speaker 2 you know, it's,

Speaker 2 it very much was,

Speaker 2 that was the point when I realized how much had been taken from me.

Speaker 1 To also be fair, and I think that's like a very normal

Speaker 1 answer that anyone who has experienced a form of trauma would be like, there's the,

Speaker 1 I'm not going to say like dissociating, but in some capacity, you have to dissociate to keep moving.

Speaker 1 And then one day, it just kind of hits you of your reality because you've gone through enough to get yourself back on your feet.

Speaker 1 And like you said, you graduate and then you're like, okay, I'm going to go get a job. This is normal.
And then it's like, no, you can't get a job. When you say that, though, Monica, like,

Speaker 1 what do you mean? Like, people were literally turning you down in job interviews.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I mean, it was, it was everything from

Speaker 2 I wasn't even allowed to go interview certain places. Like a place would say, say, no, we don't, you can't even come interview, even though I was qualified to,

Speaker 2 because it was 2007 when I was job hunting, I

Speaker 2 was, and, and then

Speaker 2 Hillary was running in 2008. So there was this high likelihood that she would become president or, you know, or, or could get the nomination.

Speaker 2 So I think at that point she was expected to get the nomination, but of course, Barack Obama did.

Speaker 2 So at this period of time, when I am job hunting, people were saying, Well, could you get a letter of indemnity? I can never say this. I had Bell's palsy a few years ago.

Speaker 1 So, sometimes indemnification.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so sometimes some words are still a little hard for me, but indemnitive asked me if I could get a letter of indemnification

Speaker 2 if they hired me because they relied on grants. And so they were worried that they would lose all their funding.

Speaker 2 So it was,

Speaker 2 it was, there were a couple places that, um,

Speaker 2 you know, were interested to hire me, but would be like, well, you'd be interacting with the media. So, I mean, it's just,

Speaker 2 you know.

Speaker 1 Was there ever a point that you, not that you should, but was there ever a point that you or anyone in your family thought of changing your name or your last name at all?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I think that there

Speaker 2 was definitely a period of time that

Speaker 2 I contemplated it, except given the world we lived in,

Speaker 2 I couldn't even see a reality of that, right? Like, how is that really going to work, right?

Speaker 2 I'm going to walk down the street in LA where I was raised and run into someone and they'll say Monica, and I'll, you know, oh, my name is Rebecca now.

Speaker 2 I mean, like, it just, I didn't even know how that would, how that would work. Or people had suggested to me, well, you could put a different name on your CV.
And I thought about that.

Speaker 2 But then, you know, when you play that forward, you just,

Speaker 2 so what, I'm going to walk into a job interview, the person in their head is like, that girl looks a lot like Mardika Lewinsky.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and they're looking at me and I'm looking at them. And, you know, it's just, and then you're also starting out,

Speaker 2 you know, it's sort of like part of why I haven't online dated is that, that whole thing of if you, if you, you know, don't want to use your name, you're starting something out with a lie, you know, so that doesn't, that doesn't totally feel right to me either.

Speaker 2 So I, but, but really more than just the practicality, I think as time went on, I, I also came to feel very strongly that I didn't want to change my name. Why should I have to change my name?

Speaker 2 You know, I, I bet nobody has asked Bill if he needed, you know, did he ever think about changing his, okay, I get, I get because he was most famous person in the world at a moment, like, and president, et cetera.

Speaker 2 But just even the idea would never cross someone's mind to a man, you know, and also too, I'm, you know, I regret a lot of different decisions I've made both prior to 98, post 98.

Speaker 2 Like I'm a human being, but I'm not ashamed of who I am. And so I think that that, that was a really

Speaker 2 important,

Speaker 1 important thing. And I, and I hope you know in me asking that, like, I don't think you should change your name, but I hearing what you went through, I understand

Speaker 1 there may be people around you being like, Monica, like to get a job, maybe change last name. Like that is, I interviewed Amanda Knox at one point.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's like, there is this horrible reality that you have to, which we're going to get to eventually of like, you have to decide how you're going to live your life and you can't just keep letting other people dictate it, even though it's pretty fucking hard because you're saying, I'm walking in places and no one will hire me.

Speaker 1 And it's like,

Speaker 1 it's like if in the grand scheme,

Speaker 1 how are you not getting a fucking job? You know what I mean? Like you're a qualified.

Speaker 2 And I was really, I was, I was so lucky that I came from an upper middle class family that could help support me because I couldn't earn an income.

Speaker 2 But you really, you know, when you're sitting inside a scandal like this, you really come to understand why a lot of times women make the choices they do because those are the only fucking options they have is to maybe pose nude in a magazine because you will get money and you can pay rent and put food on the table, you know?

Speaker 2 And so it's, um,

Speaker 2 it is, it, you really come to understand

Speaker 2 choices people make and how hard it can be.

Speaker 2 I often think about that we don't examine and judge people by the things they don't do or the things they turn down, you know? So

Speaker 1 true. I mean, yeah.
To add

Speaker 1 color for my audience, I just want to like

Speaker 1 read this.

Speaker 1 You were 22 years old. He was 49.

Speaker 1 You were an intern.

Speaker 1 He was the president of the United States.

Speaker 1 There is a clear power imbalance that they never focused on in the media when all this was coming out. How aware were you of this power imbalance?

Speaker 2 I don't think that was something we talked about, you know, very much back then in the same way that we didn't have words like slut shaming and fat shaming. You know,

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 2 this story became,

Speaker 2 it felt very

Speaker 2 bifurcated. It was like most Democrats, whether they believed him or not, were supportive.
Most Republicans, whether they, you know, were opposed. And

Speaker 2 it's

Speaker 2 that wasn't something that we talked about a lot. And I think that it was really in the wake of

Speaker 2 Me Too 2.0 that we really started to look at power imbalances under the umbrella of abuse of power. Yeah.

Speaker 1 In 2014, you said the relationship was consensual. In 2018, you said you were just reevaluating how power dynamics impact consent.
Now, today, where do you stand?

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Speaker 1 In 2014, you said the relationship was consensual. In 2018, you said you were just reevaluating how power dynamics impact consent.
Now today, where do you stand?

Speaker 2 I,

Speaker 2 you know, it's really still.

Speaker 2 I kind of landed in the place that I landed in 2018, which was this, which was this sense of I'm very clear this was not sexual assault.

Speaker 2 And therefore there's a level of consensuality that was there. And at the same time, because of the power dynamics and the power differential, I never should have fucking been in that position.

Speaker 2 And so that's where you just can't even, I think that you can't even understand

Speaker 2 what you're walking into. And that's where.
it's the responsibility of the person with more power.

Speaker 2 And that power can be age, it can be their job, it can be their financial resources, it can, there could be myriad reasons that they have that, the tilt towards the power that way.

Speaker 1 No, and I appreciate you saying that because

Speaker 1 the reality is when you're, even when I'm going back and reading these headlines, it's like

Speaker 1 the chaos of like, that people believed, even the people writing it, that like you were this person coming, like he's the president of the United Fucking States.

Speaker 2 Like their secret service.

Speaker 1 Like you hear sneaking through the halls and you're like going after him.

Speaker 2 Like it's like it doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And it's so that again, Monica, and why I appreciate you talking with me about this is I see it every day still in media, in different corners of social media, even, where a woman is being pinned as something.

Speaker 1 And when you are a woman that's had any form of what you're discussing and what I'm discussing of the slut shaming or the judgment or the double standard.

Speaker 1 It's so obvious as a woman where I'm like, there's just no fucking way. Like, hold on, hold on.
He is the president and she's. And I think in a gorgeous way, I hope that we're making some progress.

Speaker 2 I think we have.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 so.

Speaker 2 I don't know that it would be as

Speaker 2 different as people think it would be if it were, you know,

Speaker 2 with a

Speaker 2 young, charismatic Democratic president um

Speaker 2 but i think we have i think we have made some strides just even in in the fact that we have um language you know that we now have nomenclature for these kinds of things that allow for more nuanced conversations that's a good point

Speaker 1 when you look back

Speaker 1 once the news broke and how everything was handled by media and the white house

Speaker 1 how do you think it should have been handled have you thought about oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 I think that he should have said,

Speaker 2 I'm like now thinking this through. I don't think I've answered this question before.

Speaker 2 But good question. I haven't been asked that before.
So

Speaker 2 I think that

Speaker 2 the right way to handle

Speaker 2 a situation like that would have been to probably say it was, you know, nobody's business and to resign, you know, or to find a way, to find a way of staying in office that was

Speaker 2 not

Speaker 2 lying and not

Speaker 2 throwing a young person who was just starting out in the world under the bus. And at the same time, I'm hearing myself say that.
And it's like,

Speaker 2 okay, but we're, we're also talking about

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 2 most powerful office in the world you know so I don't I don't want to be naive either I you know but I

Speaker 1 love that answer because you're being honest you're like as a human being if we take a step back that I agree with you that is exactly how it should have been handled it's the least they could have done for you right

Speaker 1 And not even for you, just for like for anybody. Right.
It was the truth, right?

Speaker 1 But then we're talking about the White House. And I think this is where it gets complicated because, like, at what cost are you just kind of thrown to the wolves to protect something larger?

Speaker 1 I don't know. I know we both don't have to answer.
I think it's okay.

Speaker 2 It's complicated, you know, it's really complicated because you're, you are talking about issues and situations where so many people are impacted, you know? So I don't,

Speaker 2 you know, and maybe this is a reflection of my generation or my age, but I don't, I don't don't know where the right, I don't know where the right balance is, you know, because there's, there's, there was damage no matter what.

Speaker 2 I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on the world stage, to be torn apart, you know, from my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything.

Speaker 1 What you're saying, though, is I hear what you're saying. It's like

Speaker 1 this was such a large statement to the world about the way,

Speaker 1 and I get what you're saying. At the time, there wasn't this language, but the double standard:

Speaker 1 here's the fucking example right here. Yeah, right, what we're talking about.
Yeah, look what came from all of this for you, and for then the other party.

Speaker 2 It's just, it's not the consequences were just nowhere, you know. I lost my future, so I mean, that was

Speaker 2 that, that really was,

Speaker 1 I, I

Speaker 2 was lucky enough to hold on to a strand of my true self. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, but I lost my future. Yeah.
And so I'm so grateful for how my life has changed in the last 10 years. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 2 it, it wasn't, um,

Speaker 2 that certainly was not a given, you know.

Speaker 1 You made

Speaker 1 many many public apologies. Have you ever received one in return?

Speaker 2 I have had a handful of people who were involved at the time

Speaker 2 that I've run into in different ways who have acknowledged that they wish they had made different choices.

Speaker 2 None of the people who were, you know, sort of the above the fold names involved in the investigation. And I'm really grateful that I'm at a place where I don't need it anymore.

Speaker 1 Was there ever a time where you felt like you did? Oh, sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, sure.
Well, I think that's, you know, and that this is sort of something I don't, I don't know that I fully unpacked it yet for myself. You know, I think

Speaker 2 a lot of times with the writing I do, it's like I have an idea for something and I sort of plant the seed and just let it, I'm like, okay, since some version of me, it's figuring it, it's like figuring itself out to worm it its way out onto a page.

Speaker 2 but i think that a lot of that has to do with this um

Speaker 2 the intersection of as my life changed as people saw me more and more as my true self as i was able to have more agency um that

Speaker 2 those things became less important because i was been able to even though I will always be defined in some way by my history, I am also defined by my present.

Speaker 2 And that's, it's important.

Speaker 1 It's beautiful because I can imagine like the way that you're talking about being isolated and being trapped and not being able to speak to people for eight months and the emotional trauma that can do to a human being.

Speaker 1 Like you said, you weren't prepared for any of this and it hit you in the face and you had to just run with it because you had no other option to survive.

Speaker 1 And then you come out of this and it's like, how many times did you think like, wow, this, there is a potential this will stay with me for the rest of my life?

Speaker 2 Well, I had a whole, I call it my dark decade. I mean, it was a whole period of floundering and having no purpose.
I mean, I'm always lucky. My family's always been amazing.
I've always had friends.

Speaker 2 Thank God.

Speaker 1 You stepped away for about 10 years. That was my time.
That was the time. Yeah.
Did you date at all? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So I have always dated, not very, like, not always successfully dated.

Speaker 2 And I was somebody who had wanted to get married and have kids. And

Speaker 2 I'm sort of past that point of having kids naturally.

Speaker 2 So that

Speaker 2 I think that was a focus for a long time. But it was definitely

Speaker 2 my, you know, my dating

Speaker 2 life has been

Speaker 2 complicated, I think, at times, you know.

Speaker 1 In

Speaker 1 dating, when you were trying to get back to some form of normalcy, like, did you find in moments that like men

Speaker 1 were kind of in it for the wrong reason?

Speaker 2 I've had a couple instances like that. I mean, it's sort of this wide

Speaker 2 spectrum of,

Speaker 2 I think, my

Speaker 2 bullshit detector for someone who was there for the wrong reason has been pretty strong, luckily.

Speaker 2 But then there have been, you know, there's a wide spectrum of like

Speaker 2 how intimacy goes after something like this. And it's, you know, it's like, I mean, thankfully, no one's ever asked me to wear a beret in the bedroom, but, you know, I mean, there, there have been,

Speaker 2 you know, it's complicated.

Speaker 2 Look,

Speaker 2 I think our comfort level and

Speaker 2 it might be generational,

Speaker 2 but I think comfort level of

Speaker 2 really feeling like you can own your own sexuality fully

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 can be one layer that many of us go through when you add on

Speaker 2 the way I was sexualized and humiliated around sex,

Speaker 2 you know, it, it makes it more complicated, you know?

Speaker 1 So I appreciate you sharing that, though, because like, I couldn't help but think, you know, there was this massive focus on your sex life in your 20s.

Speaker 1 And I've even talked about it in the beginning days of my show. It was way more sexual and it was fun.
But then I would go on dates and I was like,

Speaker 1 wait, no, like, I think you have the wrong wrong idea.

Speaker 2 Or that's one part of me.

Speaker 2 It's funny because what, what's, what was amazing to me, I was thinking about coming and sitting down with you. And it was like, oh, you know, thanks to your.
I think it was episode three.

Speaker 2 I'm like, you choke the mantle of Flowjob, Queen. I cannot thank you enough.
Monica.

Speaker 1 You know, so I was, you know,

Speaker 1 who was it?

Speaker 2 The GG 9,000.

Speaker 1 Good luck, luck, 9,000, girl.

Speaker 1 But it's, I'm obsessed that you just said that. But that in in itself is like, there's the reclaiming of as women to be like, I'm going to own it first before you can own it.
But then

Speaker 1 you talking about, you know, being slut shamed, like, how did you start to trust people again? Like, getting into a relationship with a man or going into a bedroom with a man that you think you trust?

Speaker 2 It's, um,

Speaker 2 you know, I think that those,

Speaker 1 uh,

Speaker 2 I think that the first,

Speaker 2 the handful of years, I was very self-conscious

Speaker 2 because of how I'd been sexualized and

Speaker 2 because, as we were talking before, of

Speaker 2 having

Speaker 2 the most powerful man, you know,

Speaker 2 wag their finger and say, I didn't have sex with that woman. And

Speaker 2 George Lakoff wrote this essay where he was talking about how I wrote about this a little in one of my articles, but

Speaker 2 we see, because we haven't had a fucking woman president yet, but we see

Speaker 2 the male president as a father figure. This idea of the father of the country saying,

Speaker 2 you know, and so I had concerns about that. And I think that there,

Speaker 2 again, as, as, because of my own self-esteem issues already, I think that it

Speaker 2 it impacted things.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I don't drink anymore. I mean, I have champagne on like rare occasions.
I'm not, I'm not sober. I just don't drink.
So I'm, you know, but I think that helped for a while.

Speaker 1 And then,

Speaker 2 you know, I mean, I joke now, like if I were still drinking, I'd probably have a lot more sex, but, you know, because the sort of the moment in the night, you know, the moment in the night was like, or I should say more casual sex, but that moment in the night where you're sort of

Speaker 2 going to like lean into

Speaker 2 this, this thing, Like you just start, you start to get more self-conscious. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know? Yes. And you start to get more self-conscious and then you get in your head and I get what you're saying, like having a glass of wine, it relaxes you, but I see what you're saying.

Speaker 1 It's like, this is this, again, the smaller version of what you experienced when I think so many women can relate to whether it's middle school or high school or college and a guy runs around saying something about a hookup with you, whether it was true or a lie.

Speaker 1 I've had that happen to to me where you're like, that's not true. Like, and you're so embarrassed.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 a lot of those moments, like, I then would like replay my exchanges with that person. And I don't know if you had this where you're like self-consciously

Speaker 1 being

Speaker 1 made fun of. So then you're like, well, what did I like? And do you know what, do I make sense a little bit here? You're just like replaying like, what did I do? And what was I like?

Speaker 1 And as a woman, like,

Speaker 1 so much of our worth people put on us is our sexuality. So then to be publicly put down, you're like, oh my God.
And as a 24-year-old woman, then it's like, what am I worth?

Speaker 1 And of course, you're worth everything more than that. But at the time, your self-worth is like.

Speaker 2 Well, and I had, I had had a lot of,

Speaker 2 I had had some sexual trauma from when I was younger that, you know, we didn't even have, again, didn't have language for the kinds of things that, you know, that happened.

Speaker 2 And so you, you don't even know that you're acting out. You know, you don't even know, you can't even piece those things together.

Speaker 2 So it's, um, it, it is, but I, you know, I've also been really lucky in,

Speaker 2 I haven't been super successful at a, you know, at a relationship. I haven't been successful at all at a relationship that goes the full distance.

Speaker 2 But I have been really lucky and dated some amazing men. And those

Speaker 2 men, each in their own way,

Speaker 2 have helped me find a piece of myself again, you know?

Speaker 1 Shame.

Speaker 1 Can we talk about that for all the young women listening? Yeah.

Speaker 1 You have tackled it head on, quite literally. And it is something that I think every woman in our lifetime, we experience it in a way that men just will not understand.

Speaker 1 Can you talk a little bit, if you have any advice on how to overcome shame as a woman when someone is putting you down, again, sexually for not being enough,

Speaker 1 whatever it be?

Speaker 2 I guess my brain's going in a few places, but I guess the kind of good news and bad news is the good news is

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 those moments will dissipate like that shame spear that that stabs you, that wound will heal.

Speaker 2 The bad news is that

Speaker 2 we like keep dealing with shame in

Speaker 2 different ways throughout life.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think for me,

Speaker 2 the thing that is

Speaker 2 I think of shame almost being like a bacteria in a petri dish, that it's like when you put it into this petri dish and it's all by itself, it just grows, but it's still alone.

Speaker 2 And that's the thing to know the most is that almost everything anybody might feel shame about, somebody else is feeling the same thing.

Speaker 2 Like it is not, it doesn't necessarily mean there's, you're not going to feel some shame, but for it to lessen a bit

Speaker 2 in some ways. And it, it is,

Speaker 2 I wish, I wish, wish, wish, you know, we get to a place in our world where

Speaker 2 women can just sort of like shirk the shame, you know, and just, you can't even be shamed

Speaker 2 because that's what we see with some men in the world

Speaker 2 who are shameless.

Speaker 2 And that's,

Speaker 2 it's complicated. It is, it's something I still deal with, you know, so less and less.

Speaker 1 I want to just kind of conclude on the double standards. Okay.

Speaker 1 Any advice for women when it comes to navigating double standards in how we are treated versus men, I can only imagine the amount of women listening that have a workplace dynamic with a boss or a relationship or, like you said, some financial situation.

Speaker 1 Like, do you have any advice?

Speaker 2 I don't know how successful I have been in trying to navigate the double standards. I think in some ways my own reclaiming is

Speaker 2 trying to

Speaker 2 has been trying to open a path or continue a path

Speaker 2 that not a lot of women have been able to go through before, which is to be a fallen woman and to rise. And so

Speaker 2 letting many other women know,

Speaker 2 it doesn't,

Speaker 2 I'm not the one to say this. This is like a well-known quote: of just, you know, it doesn't matter how many times you fall down.
It matters how many you get up.

Speaker 2 And so I think that's, that's the most important thing. So I'm sorry, I don't have a better answer for you on that.

Speaker 1 It's like the most honest answer you can give because I have sat with so many people. I literally call my mom about it in moments where I'm frustrated.

Speaker 1 If I see something online or in my real personal life, like I grapple with it constantly because I start conversations like this. Like, what do we do, Monica?

Speaker 1 Like, you experienced something on the biggest platform in the world. How do we change this?

Speaker 1 Because, as much as I would like to say, it wouldn't happen to another woman again, I do think it could happen to another woman again, looking at like what's going on in our world.

Speaker 1 And so, I do think the reality, as

Speaker 1 upsetting as it is is to say, is like, I don't think there is a solution yet.

Speaker 2 But we're working, you know,

Speaker 2 and I think the thing that is so

Speaker 2 important about change, and it's one of the things I

Speaker 2 admire about you, and I'm so excited for you and grateful to you is that you are, you are pushing forward in a path in, in business and podcasts, as a young woman, right up there, right up there with these men who are, you know, who are valuing what their contribution is in their podcast and they're being,

Speaker 2 they're having that reflected to them and what they've sold them for. And you have done that, Alex.

Speaker 2 Like, I hope you take that in every day because of you, other women are going to be able to have successful podcasts that they then move on to other places for, for

Speaker 1 I can't. You know what I mean? No, I can't.
First of all, I can't thank you enough for saying that, but I hope you know I feel the same way about you.

Speaker 1 The fact that you have chosen to sit here and continue to sit in front of cameras and speak about your experience, it like makes me emotional. It's like.

Speaker 1 There are so many women that look at you and it's like, if she can get through that, then I can get through this.

Speaker 1 And I, it's not that it should be your job to make people feel more seen and more hopeful, but it is so incredible that you haven't given up and that you didn't just go away and just decide to like pull back.

Speaker 1 Like you kept your fucking name, Monica Lewinsky, and you're not going anywhere. And that's why I'm so excited for you.
Podcasting is so incredible. It's so hard.

Speaker 2 It's so hard, but it's so hard.

Speaker 2 It's so much harder than I thought.

Speaker 1 Everyone will give you grace in the fact that you are going onto this new venture. Okay.
I am so excited for you. I am going to give you my personal number and I am here.
Okay. If you need any advice.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.
last question. Okay.
If you could go back

Speaker 1 and talk to your 22-year-old self,

Speaker 1 what would you tell her?

Speaker 2 Do not go to Washington.

Speaker 1 Monica, thank you so much for coming and call her daddy.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Alex. This is so lovely.

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