The Clinton/Lewinsky scandal

In a 2014 Vanity Fair story, Lewinsky broke years of silence in her Vanity Fair article, stating that her affair with President Clinton was “consensual" and said it was “time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” referring to the hat she wore in a famous photo and the stained dress her former colleague Linda Tripp allegedly kept as proof of the affair.

In a new Vanity Fair essay published Nov. 13, 2018, Lewinsky, now 45, shared her thought process about participating in "The Clinton Aiffair." She wrote, "The process of this docuseries led me to new rooms of shame that I still needed to explore, and delivered me to Grief’s doorstep. Grief for the pain I caused others. Grief for the broken young woman I had been before and during my time in D.C., and the shame I still felt around that. Grief for having been betrayed first by someone I thought was my friend, and then by a man I thought had cared for me. Grief for the years and years lost, being seen only as 'That Woman'—saddled, as a young woman, with the false narrative that my mouth was merely a receptacle for a powerful man’s desire. Grief for a relationship that had no normal closure."

White House intern Monica Lewinsky greets President Clinton at a White House Christmas party on Dec. 16, 1996. This photo was submitted as evidence in documents by the Kenneth Starr investigation and released by the House Judiciary Committee in September 1998.

The Clinton family walks with their dog, Buddy, toward a helicopter from the White House on Aug. 18, 1998. The family departed for vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., one day after Clinton admitted on national TV that he misled the public about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

From right: House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., confers with Parliamentarian Dan Freeman, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., on Oct. 5, 1998, the opening day of the Clinton impeachment inquiry.

President Clinton walks to the podium to deliver a short statement on the impeachment inquiry in the Rose Garden on Dec. 11, 1998. He apologized to the country for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair and said he would accept a congressional censure or rebuke.

Monica Lewinsky leaves the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 2, 1999, one day after giving a deposition to House impeachment managers.

Monica Lewinsky leaves the Howard County Courthouse in Ellicott City, Md., on Dec. 16, 1999, after testifying in the Linda Tripp wire-tapping trial.