Monica Lewinsky has reflected on the mental health issues she faced in the 1990s amid the scandal that surrounded her affair with then-President Bill Clinton in her early 20s. The now 48-year-old activist and former White House grantee has come clean in an interview for the podcast The Axe Files published this Thursday by the American television channel CNN. The investigation into the scandal, which led to the process of impeachment of Clinton, made him have “suicidal ideas” in the wake of his outbreak in 1998.
“I couldn’t see a way out. And I thought that maybe that was the solution, “he assured to the astonishment of his interviewer, commentator David Axelrod. Lewinsky has confessed that he even asked “what would happen if he died?” to the lawyers who worked for the then American judge Kenneth Starr. In her current reflection, the activist wonders why there is no protocol that could have shed light on her situation. “That’s a point where you are supposed to bring a psychologist or, you know, something,” he added.
Lewinsky’s comments follow the series’ US premiere Impeachment: American Crime Story, a new dramatization of the Lewinsky case that tells of Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, which almost cost him the presidency, from the point of view of the ex-grantee. A series that will arrive in Spain through La Sexta, but whose date is still unknown.
Lewinsky concluded his confession by stating that, despite everything, he was lucky: “I think that many people who have had these suicidal ideas find themselves at a time when… they feel a revelation, you know, like two paths that separate in a forest ”, he explained. “But then the forensic psychiatrist picked up the phone from me. And that’s how I was pretty, pretty lucky. “
In recent years, the activist has spoken publicly about her changing her vision of the case thanks to the #MeToo movement and how he fought for years to keep his life from being defined by scandal. In her interview with CNN, she stated that her work as a producer of the new series on the case has helped her to vindicate her side of the story. “They stole my story and then I lost it for trying to go back, for trying to flee from everything that had happened for many years,” he added, ensuring that this production has helped him “face his past.” The objective of Lewinsky’s documentary is, as she herself has pointed out, “to ensure that what happened does not happen again to any other young woman.”
Bill Clinton, for his part, recounted a year ago through the documentary Hillary published by the Hulu platform that he feels “terrible” because the issue has “unfairly” defined Lewinsky’s life. He gave his own explanation about what happened and assured that the consensual sexual relations he had with the then White House intern helped him “control his anxiety for years.”