Monica Lewinsky Heartbroken After Bullied Teen Commits Suicide
Image by Getty
By Thea Glassman August 17, 2016
Monica Lewinsky took to Twitter to express her condolences after bullied 13-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick hung himself in Staten Island last week.
“Heartbroken to see yet another story like this. RIP Daniel; condolences to his family. We need to listen + care more.” she posted on Monday.
? to see yet another story like this. RIP daniel; condolences to his family. we need to listen + care more. https://t.co/LJ8JM58xNh
— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) August 15, 2016
Fitzpatrick left a devastating note before hanging himself with a belt, writing that he was bullied by a group of students at Holy Angels Catholic Academy, while teachers turned a blind eye.
“I wanted to get out I begged and pleaded,” he wrote.
Daniel Fitzpatrick Image by GoFundMe
Lewinsky also tweeted out a GoFundMe page to help financially assist the teen’s family with a memorial service. The page has since exceeded it’s fundraising goal by a landslide, raising $124,658 of an original $10,000 ask. The Fitzpatrick family later penned an appreciative note to supporters, adding that they will be donating a portion of the money to an anti-bullying organization that promote suicide awareness.
Lewinksy is an ardent fighter against bullying, speaking out against online shaming at a Ted Talk last March.
“Millions of people, often anonymously, can stab you with their words, and that’s a lot of pain, and there are no perimeters around how many people can publicly observe you and put you in a public stockade.” she said. “There is a very personal price to public humiliation, and the growth of the Internet has jacked up that price.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
-
Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
-
Fast Forward Brooklyn event with Itamar Ben-Gvir cancelled days before Israeli far-right minister’s US trip
-
Culture How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on ‘Shark Tank’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.