Monica Lewinsky, who got worldwide attention after her infamous romance with United States Ex-President Bill Clinton gave a TED Talk at the 2015 event in Vancouver, Canada, on Thursday, Mar. 19 to address cyber bulling, during which she brought up her improbable affair with the former President back in 1998 while she interning at the White House.
“At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss,” Lewinsky, now 41, said. “At the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences… Who didn’t make a mistake at 22?”
“Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of my mistake, and I regret that mistake deeply,” she revealed. “In 1998, after having been swept up in an improbable romance, I was then swept up into the eye of a political, legal, and media maelstrom like we had never seen before.”
“This scandal was brought to you by the digital revolution,” she told TED2015 attendees. “It was the first time traditional news was usurped by the Internet, a click that reverberated around the whole world.”
“Now, I admit I made mistakes—especially wearing that beret,” she joked. “But the attention and judgment that I received—not the story, but that I personally received — was unprecedented. I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo and, of course, ‘that woman.’ I was known by many, but actually known by few. I get it. It was easy to forget ‘that woman’ was dimensional and had a soul.”
“In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity… I lost my sense of self,” she told the crowd. “When this happened to me, 17 years ago, there was no name for it. Now we call it cyber-bullying.”
After several years away from the spotlight, Lewinsky was moved to action by the suicide of a Rutgers student Tyler Clementi in 2010 who jumped to his death after students publicly revealed a private video of him with another man. Referring to Clementi’s death as “tragic” and “senseless,” Lewinsky said Thursday:
“It served to recontextualize my experiences. I began to look at the world of humiliation and bullying around me and see something different. Every day online, people — especially young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this — are so abused and humiliated that they can’t imagine living to the next day.”
“Public humiliation as a blood sport has to stop,” she pleaded. “We need to return to a long-held value of compassion and empathy… I’ve seen some very dark days in my life. It was empathy and compassion from friends, family, coworkers, even strangers that saved me. Empathy from one person can make a difference. Compassionate comments help abate the negativity.”
As for why she’s finally speaking out on this matter after years and years of silence, she said it was because this is now the right time:
“Time to stop tiptoeing around my past … Time to take back my narrative. Anyone who is suffering from shame and public humiliation needs to know one thing: you can survive it. I know it’s hard. It may not be painless, quick, or easy, but you can insist on a different ending to your story.”
Photo Credit: James Duncan Davidson/TED; Getty
