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Monica Lewinsky has evolved since the White House scandal – and she hopes critics one day can, too.
Lewinsky, 53, credited time and patience as her saving graces while reflecting on challenges from her past during an appearance on the “All the Cool Girls” podcast.
“I think that coming into my 50s was amazing and just the shedding of worries,” she told co-hosts Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill.
MONICA LEWINSKY’S LINDSEY GRAHAM TRIBUTE DRAWS CRITICISM AND PRAISE FOR PLACING PEOPLE OVER PARTY: EXPERT
“I mean that whole … joke about ‘I don’t give anymore f—s,’ and it’s like you really start to give fewer and fewer f—s, and you settle into acceptance in a way that has been really reassuring for me.”
Unlike the critics, the podcast host moved on from past discretions to reclaim not only her life, but also her own story.
“In terms of the people who still have old, old beliefs, I wish they would get some new jokes because, I mean, 30 years of the same jokes, Jesus,” she said. “Or 28 years. We’re not at 30 yet.”
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Lewinsky was 21 years old when she began an unpaid internship at the White House in July 1995. She turned 22 that summer, and her sexual relationship with former President Bill Clinton, who was 49 at the time, began in November 1995.
It was only after she confided in a Pentagon co-worker, Linda Tripp – who secretly recorded their conversations, which were then used in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton – when the affair became public fodder.
During a January 1998 White House news conference, Clinton famously denied the affair, and stated, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and Lewinsky subsequently went into hiding due to public humiliation.
The subsequent impeachment trial against the 42nd president began in January 1999 and ended Feb. 12. While Clinton was impeached by the house, he was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
While the scandal made headlines for years, Lewinsky only truly began reclaiming her identity in the last decade.
“I feel really grateful. I’m really grateful, and I’m excited,” she said. “It’s when I step away and I look at my own story objectively – or as objectively as one can – it is pretty extraordinary to still be here, like physically still here, and to have been able to help shape how people see me more and understand me more and connect with me in ways that are meaningful. It’s bonkers.”
Themes surrounding authority and control have remained a constant in Lewinsky’s life post scandal.
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“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 explained to Fox News Digital earlier this year.
“Then there’s the power that someone has in connection to themselves and that’s a lot more like strength.”
She added, “People often think of resilience as being linear, and it is so much more like a spiral. 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.”