Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with President Bill Clinton led to his 1998 impeachment, has said the former president should have resigned rather than stay in office and let her bear the brunt of the scandal. In an interview on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, Lewinsky, now 51, reflected on how the fallout from their relationship shaped her life, particularly in dating and public perception.
"I think that the right way to handle a situation like that would have been to probably say it was nobody's business and to resign," Lewinsky said. She added that Clinton could have also found a way to remain in office "that was not throwing a young person who is just starting out in the world under the bus."
Lewinsky was 22 when she became involved with Clinton, a relationship that became public in 1998, resulting in a high-profile investigation led by independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for lying under oath about the affair but was acquitted by the Senate and served out his term.
Over the years, Lewinsky has spoken about how the scandal damaged her reputation. On Cooper's podcast, she addressed the broader consequences of the controversy, particularly for women. "I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman be pilloried on a world stage-to be torn apart for my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything," she said.
Lewinsky also discussed how the scandal affected her personal relationships. "I have always dated, not always successfully dated," she said. She explained that while she once hoped to marry and have children, those aspirations became more complicated. "My dating life has been complicated, I think, at times."
Asked whether men ever pursued her because of the notoriety surrounding her past, Lewinsky acknowledged having encountered such situations. "I've had a couple instances like that, but I mean, it's sort of this wide spectrum of, I think my bullshit detector for someone who was there for the wrong reason has been pretty strong, luckily," she said.
She also spoke about how the affair and its fallout affected her relationship with intimacy, noting that the way she was sexualized in the media made it more difficult. "It makes it more complicated," Lewinsky said. "I think our comfort level, and it might be generational, but I think comfort level of really feeling like you can own your own sexuality fully can be one layer that many of us go through when you add on the way I was sexualized and humiliated around sex."
Lewinsky, who has since become an anti-bullying advocate, said the digital landscape has transformed how public scandals unfold. "I went to bed one night a private person, and the next day I was known by the entire world," she recalled. She noted that in 1998, support from strangers only came through letters. "Sometimes, the highlight of my day would literally be going to get the mail, which is pretty pathetic."
