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Bill Clinton says Monica Lewinsky affair was to ‘manage my anxieties’
Bill Clinton claimed in a new documentary that his extramarital affair with then-White House staffer Monica Lewinsky in 1995 was to “manage [his] anxieties.”
He made the comments as part of the “Hillary” documentary series, which examines the public life of 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton.
In the docu-series, filmmaker and director Nanette Burstein questions Bill Clinton about why he chose to begin the affair given his high and powerful position. “Nobody sits down and thinks, ‘I think I’ll take a really irresponsible risk,’” he says. “It’s bad for my family, bad for my country, bad for the people who work with me.”
“It’s not a defense, it’s an explanation. It was awful. I feel terrible,” he remarked before drifting off. The former president reportedly compared the pressures of the Oval Office to being in a “15-round prize fight that was extended to 30 rounds.”
“Here’s something that will take your mind off it for a while … Things I did to manage my anxieties for years,” he continues, adding that he is a “totally different person than [he] was 20 years ago.
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“Everybody’s life has pressures and disappointments and terrors, fears of whatever, things I did to manage my anxieties for years.”
In the late 1990s, his relationship with Monica Lewinsky became a big news topic when he first denied the affair before confessing to “inappropriate intimate physical contact”
Lewinsky was an intern for Jennifer Palmieri, who was a special assistant to the White House chief of staff at the time. Palmieri subsequently became the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
In the documentary, Ms. Palmieri claims that Evelyn Lieberman, Mr. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the time, voiced worries about Ms. Lewinsky’s position in Mr. Clinton’s circle.
“I didn’t think anything of it because, of course, who would think that Bill Clinton could be that stupid?” Ms. Palmieri explains.
Lewinsky, who is active on social media, has yet to react to Clinton’s remarks, although she has previously said that the affair should no longer be referred to as “The Lewinsky Scandal.”
“Bye-bye, Lewinsky scandal … I think 20 years is enough time to carry that mantle,” Lewinsky stated in a 2018 Vanity Fair article, alluding to the 2018 docu-series “The Clinton Affair” in which she participated.
Mr Clinton’s first reaction to media allegations in 1998, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” has gone down as one of the most famous statements in US politics.
The former president was impeached by the United States House of Representatives in 1999 on perjury allegations arising from an earlier deposition in which he denied the affair. Later, he was acquitted in the Senate.
Mrs. Clinton openly supported her husband when the accusations initially surfaced, including in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” program. Mr. Clinton ultimately admitted to having an affair.
When she confronted her husband, she claims, “He said ‘Well, there’s nothing to it. It’s not true’.” He was adamant and he was convincing to me.’
Mrs Clinton expressed her grief.
“I was so personally, just hurt and I can’t believe this, I can’t believe you lied. It was horrible and I said if this is going to be public, you have to go tell Chelsea.”
Mr Clinton told the documentary’s producers that informing his daughter Chelsea about the affair was “awful”
Based on their 27-year age difference and his position, Lewinsky, now 46, had grown to see her connection with the former president as a “gross abuse of power.” Bill Clinton expressed remorse in the episode over the treatment Lewinsky got in the aftermath.
“Over the years I’ve tried to watch her get a normal life back again but you’ve got to decide how to define normal,” he added.
Clinton’s justifications for the affair enraged Twitter users, with several pointing out that he could have taken medicine instead of sleeping with Lewinsky, who has said that the affair was consensual. Others made light of more typical anxious behaviors, such as thumb biting.
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