Monica Lewinsky addresses her affair with former President Bill Clinton and the Internet’s ability to shred reputations at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia.
Monica Lewinsky spoke at the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia on her affair with President Bill Clinton and her experience with the Internet’s ability to shred reputations. The most well-known intern ever, said she fell in love with her “boss” and former president Bill Clinton.
“There are those who say, Monica, why don’t you just shut up? Why don’t you just go away?” Lewinsky said. “They said it in June, after a piece I wrote in Vanity Fair, my first public words in over ten years. And they will say it today after this one, my first major public talk, ever, and they will say it tomorrow and the day after that.”
The Clinton attack machine came out again in full force after her Vanity Fair article, in which she discussed how the Clinton attacks destroyed her life.
“‘They’ never shut up,” she said of the talking heads.
Lewinsky says she won’t be deterred by future attacks, because she believes she can offer insight to a problem that is quickly gaining in importance in U.S. society — cyber bullying.
“The problem is that I believe in the power of story. In the power of stories to inspire, comfort, educate and change things for the better: fictional stories, stories from history, news stories and yes, personal stories,” she said during the speech. “I believe my story can help.”
The Vanity Fair interview was the first in roughly 10 years from Ms. Lewinsky, who is now again in the public eye amid a near certainty that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. She says, however, it is helping — not Hillary — that has caused her to reemerged into the public spotlight.
“Help to do something to change the culture of humiliation we inhabit and that inhabits us. I had been publicly silent for a decade. But now, I must – as T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock said – disturb the universe.”
