Exciting news for everyone who is not a Clinton: Monica Lewinsky has written an essay for the forthcoming issue of Vanity Fair, and it’s not about purses. “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” announces one of the excerpts teased on VF.com. Finally — finally! — the time has come for her to stop “tiptoeing around my past — and other people’s futures.” We may be through with 1998, but (thankfully) 1998 ain’t through with us.
“I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past,” she writes. In addition to her affair with President Clinton (“I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship”), Lewinsky will address “the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.” Also, “Thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.”
Lewinsky says that she was deeply affected by the 2010 death of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide after his roommate live-streamed video of him hooking up with a man. Though Lewinsky writes that she never tried to kill herself, she recalls her mother’s reaction to the news: “She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal. The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life — a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” Lewinsky says that she’s now focused on helping victims of cyberbullying and online harassment. “Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation,” she writes.
What else is in there? Well, Lewinsky calls out Hillary Clinton for referring to her as a “narcissistic loony toon” (“I find her impulse to blame the Woman — not only me, but herself — troubling“) while claiming that she is “fearful of ‘becoming an issue’ should [Clinton] decide to ramp up her campaign.” On the other hand, Lewinsky has to do what’s right for herself. “Should I put my life on hold for another 8 to 10 years?” Absolutely not.
And, perhaps most importantly, Lewinsky points out something that’s been bothering us since we first heard Beyoncé’s “Partition“: “Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.” Welcome back, Monica — you’re going to fit right in here in 2014.
