Monica Lewinsky has shared more details of the scandal which rocked the White House when Bill Clinton was president, leading to several investigations.
In the new documentary, Monica Lewinsky admitted that she had a crush on Bill Clinton and frequently flirted with him — even intentionally leaving her underwear exposed on one occasion to get his attention. She recalled in “The Clinton Affair,” a new A&E documentary series, that at a 1995 birthday party for a White House staffer attended by the president, her underwear was protruding from the rear of her pants.
“Instead of pulling my trousers up, like I would in any other instance, I didn’t,” said Lewinsky. “It was unnoticeable to everybody else in the room, but [Clinton] noticed.”
“As I passed George Stephanopoulos’s office, I kind of looked into the open doorway,” she said. “And Bill happened to be standing there. And he motioned me in — I don’t think my heart had ever beat that fast.
“Unbeknownst to me, I was on the precipice of the rabbit hole.”
‘But I think in one way the moment we were actually in the back office for the first time the truth is I think it meant more to me the someone who other people desired, desired me.’
‘However wrong it was, however misguided, for who I was at that time, at 22 years old, it was how I felt.’
Their affair carried on to President Bill Clinton’s second term in office, but was shattered by a national firestorm under the weight of the Ken Starr probe.
“There were always narratives of secrecy in this relationship,” Lewinsky said. “We were both cautious, but not cautious enough.”“I was completely at his mercy,” added Lewinsky, who in recent years has penned essays re-examining the affair and authority Clinton wielded in the light of the #MeToo movement.
She also opened up on the grief and fear she felt when she was told that she would have to cooperate with the FBI investigation of Clinton, or face time in prison.
‘In order to cooperate and avoid charges and I would have to make monitored phone calls which they would listen in to and record and I might have to wear a wire and go see people in person,’ reveals Lewinsky in a preview for the upcoming E docuseries The Clinton Affair.‘The ground completely crumbled in that moment. I felt so much guilt. And I felt terrified,’ she reveals in the interview.
According to her, she was uncooperative as she felt she had to protect Bill Clinton.
‘There was a point for me somewhere within these first several hours where I would be hysterically crying and then I would just shut down,’ she recalls.‘And in the shut down period I just remember looking out the window and thinking the only way to fix this is to kill myself.’
‘I just felt terrible … and I was scared … and I was mortified,’ she says while trying to regain her composure.
The six-part series, produced by Alex Gibney and directed by Blair Foster, premieres on A&E at 9 p.m. Sunday.
