Monica Lewinsky Ends Jerusalem Interview After Question About Clinton
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JERUSALEM (JTA) — Monica Lewinsky, an anti-bullying advocate famous for her affair with President Bill Clinton while serving as a White House intern, cut shot a live interview in Jerusalem after the first question, about the former president.
Lewinsky appeared at a conference in Jerusalem organized by the Israel Television News Company, where she delivered a speech and then sat down on stage for a live interview with Israel Channel 2 news anchor Yonit Levi.
Levi asked Lewinsky if she was still expecting a personal apology from Clinton over the inappropriate relationship, for which Clinton was impeached, Channel 2 reported.
“I’m so sorry, I’m not going to be able to do this,” Lewinsky said as she walked off stage following the question, according to reports.
Lewinsky did not publicly discuss her relationship with Clinton until 2014. In February she wrote a personal essay for Vanity Fair on the 20th anniversary of the investigation into the affair, in which she admitted that she suffers from PTSD over the fallout from the investigation and publicity, and that the #MeToo movement had changed her perspective on the affair and its aftermath.
“I don’t think I would have felt so isolated if what happened in 1998 happened in 2018,” she told her Jerusalem audience. “By and large I had been alone. Publicly alone. Abandoned most by the main figure in this crisis, who knew me well and intimately.”
She also told the audience that after the news broke of her affair with Clinton: “I was shunned from almost every community which I belonged to, including my religious community. That led to some very dark times for me.”
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