Hillary Clinton has revealed that she worked through her husband’s affair whilst he was President by making him go through an agonising 'truth and reconciliation' process.

The former US Secretary of State said that she forced Bill Clinton into South Africa-style hearings where he had to be completely honest before she forgave him.

She said she was inspired by the country's former leader Nelson Mandela and that she had to act otherwise she would remain in a mental 'prison' for the rest of her life.

Hillary Clinton said that she forced Bill Clinton into South Africa-style hearings where he had to be completely honest about his affair with Monica Lewinsky before she forgave him

Mrs Clinton, 66, has rarely spoken about her husband’s infidelity with White House intern Monica Lewinsky when he was President which led to him being impeached in 1998.

But it has become an issue once again given that she is tipped to run for the Presidency in the 2016 election.

In an interview Mrs Clinton said that she got through the ordeal with a simple mantra: 'I moved on'.

She said that she felt blessed to have such a supportive husband and that she feels 'very lucky'.

But Mrs Clinton said: 'That doesn’t mean to say we haven’t disappointed each other.'

She told Psychologies magazine: 'I’m inspired by the example of Nelson Mandela who led a country to a new future through forgiveness and reconciliation.

'It doesn’t mean that you forget - it’s truth and reconciliation. You have to be honest. You have to face the truth about whatever your situation, personally or nationally might be.

'But he (Mandela) has often made the point that if you carried bitterness and anger with you, you would remain in prison.

'You would, in fact, be imprisoning yourself and be unfair to yourself because you can’t get beyond what happened to you.’

Affair: President Bill Clinton had an affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky

Clinton has rarely spoken about her husband's affair with Lewinsky when he was President, which led to him being impeached in 1998

South Africa’s truth and reconciliation process was started in 1996 by Mandela to investigate human rights abuses during the Apartheid era.

But unlike the post-WW2 Nuremberg trials there were no punishments because it was felt that only through complete honesty could the country move on, something not seen as possible with the threat of justice.

Mrs Clinton first spoke about her husband’s affair in 2008 during her failed run for the Presidency and has rarely addressed it since.

At the time she said that she 'never doubted Bill’s love' and that she turned to her faith and her family to get her through it.

Another insight was provided earlier this year by the private papers of Mrs Clinton’s friend and confidant Diane Blair, a political science professor who died in 2000.

The documents, which were made public for the first time, revealed that Miss Blair felt Mrs Clinton blamed herself for her husband’s dalliances because of her failures as a woman.

Miss Blair wrote: 'She thinks she was not smart enough, not sensitive enough, not free enough of her own concerns and struggles to realize the price he was paying.

'HRC (Mrs Clinton) insists, no matter what people say, it was gross inappropriate behaviour but it was consensual (was not a power relationship) and was not sex within any real meaning (standup, liedown, oral, etc.) of the term.'

Miss Lewinsky recently emerged into the public sphere for the first time since the 1990s in an article in Vanity Fair in which she described herself as a victim of a culture of humiliation.