On the eve of ‘American Crime Story’ about the Bill Clinton affair, it’s time to look at Monica Lewinsky now and see how she looks back, sees history and her own evolution.
BANG Showbiz English
Monica Lewinsky is pleased to see people apologising for the way women like Britney Spears were treated in the past.
The 47-year-old activist and television personality has admitted she relates to the ‘Toxic’ hitmaker because they were both treated negatively by the public in the past due to the way they were perceived in the spotlight.
But Monica has said her own situation – which saw her slammed for having an affair with former American President Bill Clinton between 1995 and 1996 while she worked as a White House intern, which ultimately led to Clinton’s impeachment – is very different from Britney’s because she “made a mistake”, whereas Britney didn’t.
Despite their differences, the ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ producer is still pleased to see people apologising for the way women like herself and Britney have been treated.
She said: “I think it’s long overdue and wonderful to see it happening for different women in different arenas and scenarios. I made a mistake. Britney didn’t. There were other young women this happened to, and there’s an enormous amount of collateral damage.
“So I think it’s not just an apology to a person; it’s an apology to how you’ve affected a culture. What is sexual agency? What does it mean? It’s not surprising that this de-objectifying of women is happening alongside the #MeToo movement. They braid together in a way that makes sense.”
Monica also recalled the time she met Britney, 39, in the early 2000s.
She added: “She was with Justin Timberlake, and she was going into Henri Bendel just as I was leaving. I had my handbag company at the time, and she said she thought the bags were cute. I was beside myself, so I got her some.
“But at that time I wasn’t able to have the perspective to recognise, ‘Oh, this is happening to other women.’ When the fat-shaming happened to Jessica Simpson [in 2009], I thought, ‘Oh, OK. This didn’t just happen to me. This is happening now to other people too.’ Not that that’s a good thing.”
And the star admitted there is something beautiful about having resilience.
She told InStyle magazine: “When you have made a colossal mistake like I did so early in your life, and lost so much because of it, the idea of making a mistake is catastrophic. And yet in order to move forward, I have to take risks. I have to try things. I have to continue to define who I am.”
