Monica Lewinsky is back.
Breaking years of silence, the former White House intern at the center of the scandal that led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment writes in Vanity Fairthat her affair was "consensual."
Lewinsky, now 40 and with a master's degree in social psychology, writes that it's "time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress" — a reference to the now-infamous piece of stained clothing she didn't dry-clean after an encounter with Clinton.
She also expresses some contrition, writing: "I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened."
Here's an excerpt from Lewinsky's Vanity Fair article that will be available Thursday online and on newsstands May 13.
Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position…. The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor's minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.
In the excerpts posted by the magainze, Lewinsky writes about the challenges she's had in job interviews and says she's turned down offers that would have pulled in "more than $10 million."
The suicide of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman whose intimate encounter with a man was videostreamed in 2010, also upset Lewinsky and caused her to view her own "suffering" in the spotlight in a different way.
"Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation," Lewinsky writes.
