Young “White House” intern Monica Lewinsky gained notoriety for her relationship with former President Bill Clinton. The “Lewinsky Scandal,” one of the most divisive high-profile political sex scandals in American history, sent shockwaves through the whole nation. Clinton ultimately acknowledged having “an unlawful physical relationship” with Lewinsky after making a number of denials.
Later, he was impeached and accused of “perjury.” Nevertheless, he was found not guilty after a 21-day trial. Following the incident, Lewinsky gained notoriety and made appearances on numerous TV programs, ads, and interviews. She even appeared on “Saturday Night Live.”
She also developed her own handbag collection, The Real Monica, Inc. The brand distributed its goods to a large number of nations. After some time, she lost her patience with the media hysteria and realized how impossible it was to live a private life in America. She thus relocated to London, where she attended the “London School of Economics” to earn a degree in psychology.
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Early Life
On July 23, 1973, Monica Samille Lewinsky was born in San Francisco, California. She grew up in Southern California’s affluent Brentwood and Beverly Hills areas. Her mother, Marcia Kaye Vilensky, is an author who writes under the pen name Marcia Lewis, and her father, Bernard Lewinsky, is an oncologist. In 1988, the Lewinskys were divorced.
Lewinsky was reared Jewish and went to the John Thomas Dye School and Sinai Akiba Academy when she was younger. She attended Santa Monica College while working for the drama department at Beverly Hills High School after receiving her diploma from Bel Air Prep (now Pacific Hills School) in 1991.
Around this time, she also started an affair with Andy Bleiler, the married drama teacher from her high school. Following the completion of her two-year degree, Lewinsky enrolled in Lewis & Clark College. In 1995, she received her psychology degree.
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Monica Lewinsky’s Career
She relocated to Washington, D.C., in July 1995, and was offered a position as an unpaid summer intern at the “White House Office.” She was supervised here by Leon Panetta, the White House chief of staff. She was given a chance to accept paid employment at the “White House Office” in December 1995.
She was moved to “The Pentagon,” the U.S. Department of Defense’s administrative center, in Arlington County, Virginia, in April 1996. She had an interview for the “ABC” network program “20/20” in 1999. Seventy million Americans watched this Barbara Walters-hosted episode.
On Saturday Night Live, May 8, 1999, she made an appearance. She made an appearance on a few sketches for the program that mocked her marriage to Bill Clinton. She launched her own handbag collection in September 1999 under the name “The Real Monica, Inc.,” which was initially offered for sale in New York, California, and London.
She began to appear in ‘Jenny Craig’ weight loss and nutrition company television advertising in the early 2000s. Jenny Craig was required to drop more than 40 pounds in six months before signing a $1 million endorsement contract with the business.
She made an appearance in an episode of “The Tom Green Show” in February 2000. She was portrayed in the show as visiting her hometown with the show’s host in order to find materials for her new company. She ended her relationship with “Jenny Craig” in April 2000 after the firm ceased showing the ads that featured her.
She served as a correspondent for “Monica’s Postcards,” a program that covered culture and trends, in late 2000.
She had an appearance on the “HBO” special “Monica in Black and White,” which was a collection of documentaries from the “America Undercover” series, in March 2002.
She served as the host of the reality dating program “Mr Personality” on the “Fox” television network in 2003.
She frequently appeared as a guest on programs like “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The View,” as well as “V Graham Norton” in the UK, “High Chaparall” in Sweden, and “High Chaparall.”
She earned a master’s in social psychology in 2006 from the “London School of Economics.” She explored the Third-person effect and pre-trial publicity in her thesis, “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third-person Effect.”
She discussed her contact with Clinton in an essay she published for Vanity Fair in 2014 titled “Shame or Survival.” She also appeared in the three-part documentary series “The 90s: The Last Great Decade” on the “National Geographic” channel.
Since then, she has been raising awareness of “Cyberbullying” by discussing it in “TED Talks” and other online forums. In June 2015, she was also chosen to serve as the ambassador and strategic advisor for the anti-bullying group “Bystander Revolution.” Yonit Levi, a well-known Israeli television host, spoke with her during a conference in Jerusalem. On his “HBO” show, she was also interviewed by John Oliver about the issues of public shame.
Monica Lewinsky’s Personal Life
She asserted that she had nine sexual encounters in the Oval Office, the President of the United States office, between November 1995 and March 1997 with Bill Clinton, who was in office at the time. After she informed Linda Tripp, a coworker, of her contact with Bill Clinton, Tripp secretly started recording the two of them talking on the phone.
The phone recordings were delivered by Linda Tripp to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Tripp persuaded Lewinsky to protect the items that Clinton had given her after conducting additional research on the matter.
The media first reported on the unlawful romance in January 1998. On January 26, during a nationally broadcast White House news conference, Clinton asserted that he had no sexual encounters with her. He ultimately acknowledged having an “illicit physical relationship” on August 17, 1998. National television aired this declaration.
Her authorized biography, “Monica’s Story,” authored by Andrew Morton, was released by “St. Martin’s Press” on February 1st, 1999. The book brought about $500,000 for her. She relocated to London in 2005 as the media hysteria in the USA began to have an impact on her personal and professional life. She was given a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the fallout from her widely publicized romance.
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Controversies
She became a pop culture icon as a result of her relationship with President Clinton. Record ratings were attracted by a Barbara Walters interview in which Monica Lewinsky apologized to the Clintons. Additionally, Lewinsky collaborated with Andrew Morton on the 1999 biography Monica’s Story.
After the controversy, Lewinsky tried her hand at a variety of professions. In addition to promoting the Jenny Craig weight loss program, she also created a line of handbags and worked as a television host and journalist. During the HBO series Monica in Black and White’s recording in 2002, Lewinsky answered questions from the audience.
In 2005, Lewinsky relocated to London, England, in an effort to avoid the media glare. She earned a master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics the following year.
2013 saw the auctioning off of some of Monica Lewinsky’s wardrobe and other belongings. A black negligee and a letter with President Clinton’s signature were among the things that had been provided to the Starr investigation in the 1990s.
Reappearance in public
Lewinsky wrote a stirring piece for Vanity Fair in the early months of 2018, after the #MeToo movement gave people the confidence to talk about their encounters with sexual harassment and misconduct.
She wrote that she no longer felt alone after years of being shamed for her part in a relationship with such an unbalanced power dynamic. She noted how “something fundamental changed in our society” after the public revelations of her scandal with Clinton, and that more changes were in the works with the “second year of the Trump presidency in a post-Cosby Ailes O’Reilly Weinstein Spacey Whoever Is Next world.”
Lewinsky had a significant appearance in the three-night documentary series The Clinton Affair on A&E later that year. She spoke about public shaming with John Oliver of Late Night Tonight at the start of the year.
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Monica Lewinsky’s Net Worth
Lewinsky earned a one million dollar advance for the rights to her exclusive interview with Barbara Walters for “20/20” in addition to a $500,000 advance for her 1999 biography “Monica’s Story.” She has a current net worth of $1.5 million and this appearance has helped her maintain her presence in the limelight.
