Monica Lewinsky Reflects on Dark Moments After Clinton Scandal, Says He Escaped More Than She Did

Monica Lewinsky reflected on the challenges of overcoming extreme bullying after a scandal that rocked the White House nearly 30 years ago.

Lewinsky, 52, acknowledged her extraordinary life progression as she entered a room full of positivity and love at The Beverly Hills Hotel, a sharp contrast to decades of extreme negativity. "There have been some very dark moments. I don't want to sugar coat it," Lewinsky said in a conversation with Jane Buckingham while receiving the 2026 Woman of the 21st Century honor from the Women's Guild Cedars-Sinai. "I know we're at a lovely luncheon, but I think it's so important for people to understand."

Lewinsky said Bill Clinton escaped a lot more than she did after the White House scandal. She was 21 when she started an unpaid internship at the White House in July 1995. She turned 22 that summer, and her sexual relationship with Clinton, then 49, began in November 1995.

The affair became public only after she confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their conversations for use in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.

"There have been some very dark moments. I don't want to sugar coat it," Lewinsky said.

Lewinsky said she was surprised to find women in senior White House roles did not support each other. "And it wasn't that. And that, I think, was very eye-opening to me, aside from the things I went through in '98,"

At a January 1998 White House news conference, Clinton denied the affair. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he said. Lewinsky then went into hiding amid public humiliation. She has maintained their relationship was consensual, but nothing prepared her for the negative backlash.

"I've done an enormous amount of energy work for 20 years, which, if there are any woo-woo people in the room or anybody who saw 'The Secret,' you remember about this idea of energy coming toward you and negative thoughts being ... energy coming toward you," Lewinsky said. "I was severely impacted by having billions of strangers thinking negatively about me. My energetic field wasn't ready for that. So, I think that I worked hard with that, and I feel grateful. I really shed a lot of the bitterness. I think some of it is probably also buried."

"I was severely impacted by having billions of strangers thinking negatively about me. My energetic field wasn't ready for that,"

Lewinsky contemplated suicide amid media scrutiny. She told The Times earlier this year that the public humiliation was excruciating and life was almost unbearable.

Clinton faced impeachment in December 1998 on charges of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him two months later.

Lewinsky described power in two ways. "I think of power in two different ways. There's the power that someone has and they use, that impacts other people's power," she told Fox News Digital. "Then there's the power that someone has in connection to themselves and that's a lot more like strength."

"I think of power in two different ways. There's the power that someone has and they use, that impacts other people's power,"

Lewinsky said resilience after public scrutiny is not linear. "People often think of resilience as being linear and it is so much more like a spiral," she said. "You will move forward, you'll go back, and move forward ... you'll go back and I think it's, again, people have to be patient with themselves."

Despite years of self-work, Lewinsky only recently felt confident in her progress, aided by her "Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky" podcast. "I still live in a lot of fear," she said on a recent episode. "It just may sound crazy, which is almost like an earthquake will happen and everything I've built in the last 11 years – oh gosh, it is making me emotional – will be taken away again, and I'll somehow find myself without purpose or, you know, without an income."