Forty years have passed since Juanita Broaddrick claims she was raped by former president William Jefferson Clinton, an allegation she went public with 20 years ago in an interview with NBC.

It has only been one year though since many people began to see her allegations as possible proof of an actual assault rather than a politically motivated measure meant to destroy the president.

That is thanks in large part to the #MeToo movement, which is the reason why Broaddrick is opening up again and sharing her story.

It is a story that was seen as a legitimate threat to the White House and Clinton, especially when she agreed to tape an episode of Dateline with the network’s senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers after decades of silence.

In an interview with Leon Neyfakh for the Slate podcast Slow Burn, Broaddrick recounted what happened on the day of her alleged assault and those tense few weeks she spent waiting for Dateline to run her story while her accused rapist faced articles of impeachment.

‘I’ll never forget, one day when Lisa Myers called me before the 29th [of January, 1999] and she said, “We’re still investigating. We’re still investigating,”’ explained Broaddrick.

‘And she said, “I have good news and bad news,” and I said “OK.” And she said, “The good news is you’re credible. The bad news is you’re very credible.”’

Clinton has always deferred questions about Broaddrick’s claims to his lawyer David Kendall, who called the allegation ‘absolutely false’ in 1999 and in 2017 pointed out that 'she three times denied under oath that the president had assaulted her.'

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Her story: Juanita Broaddrick (above with Bill Clinton at the nursing home she worked at in 1978). She spoke with Leon Neyfakh for the Slate podcast Slow Burn about the day in 1978 that she was allegedly raped by Bill Clinton

Emotional: After two decades of silence she was finally forced to speak about the matter when she received a subpoena from Paula Jones' lawyers (Broaddrick above on Dateline)

Broaddrick claims that in 1978 she was attending a nursing home conference in Little Rock, Arkansas when Clinton came to her hotel room, briefly chatted with her and then forced himself on her - twice.

The two had meet three weeks prior according to Broaddrick, who was working at a nursing home and volunteering for the campaign.

‘I would leave my nursing home after my office hours and I would pick up my son and we would go around—he was 8 years old at the time—and we would go around and put up yard signs,’ she stated on the podcast.

‘About three weeks after I began to volunteer, the state office called and asked if Bill Clinton could come by my nursing home, meet the residents, meet the families on a campaign tour and we were so excited.’

She continued: ‘I mean, I’d seen these commercials on TV. I thought he was absolutely going to be the best thing in the world for Arkansas.’

Clinton, then 31, spent time speaking with Broaddrick during the visit she claimed, and at the end encouraged her to get in touch with ideas about improving care and funding to facilities like the one she was working at in Van Buren.

‘We were struggling in 1978. I mean, we were struggling tremendously. So I started to go into this, and he sort of stopped me and he said, “Are you ever in Little Rock?” I said, “Yes, I’ll be there in three weeks,”’ recounted Broaddrick.

‘And he said, “Well, call my campaign office when you get there and we’ll sit down and talk about this.” And I was so excited. I worked for probably two or three days on graphs and information, gathering what all was needed, what it cost me to care for one patient versus what the state reimbursement was on Medicaid.'

On April 24, 1978, Broaddrick was in the city for a work conference and staying at the Camelot Hotel.

She and Clinton had been planning to meet around lunch time at the campaign headquarters when Broaddrick claims she got a call early that morning.

‘He said, “Why don’t I just come to your hotel now?” This is about 8 or 8:30 in the morning, and I said, “Oh that will be great,”’ recalled Broaddrick.

‘He said, “Good, I’ll meet you down in the Camelot coffee shop and I’ll call you when I get there.”’

Her co-worker Norma Rogers would later confirm this story to NBC, saying she went to the seminar while Broaddrick waited for Clinton’s call.

‘Finally the phone rings and it’s him. And he said, “You know, it’s so crowded down here and there’s also some reporters.” He said, “Could we just talk about this in your room?”’ said Broaddrick.

‘Well I immediately said yes—I mean I wasn’t frightened. I’d never been alone in a hotel room with any man that I didn’t know before, but I mean, you’re talking about the attorney general of the state of Arkansas.’

There was little time between the knock on the door minutes later and the alleged assault according to Broaddrick.

‘I opened the door and there stands Bill Clinton with these dark sunglasses on. And I can remember back thinking, my God, what’s he doing standing in the hallway with sunglasses on?’, Broaddrick said of her first few moments alone with Clinton.

‘And he just comes right in and walks over to the table where the coffee was and takes off his suit coat and lays it over the chair.’

Keeping quiet: Broaddrick then lied in a sworn statement she says, claiming that there was no truth to rumors she had been sexually assaulted (Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1978)

Silenced: Broaddrick said she was also concerned about public perception at the time since she was having an affair with her now-husband David (pair above in 1992)

Broaddick claims he then directed her over to a window while pointing out a prison he planned to renovate while putting his arm around her shoulder.

‘And I think, OK that’s interesting. And I start to go back around to the other side, of course removed his arm from my shoulder,’ recalled Broaddrick.

‘And that’s when he grabs me and that’s when things turned really bad.’

Broaddrick described the alleged assault in her 1999 interview with Myers on Dateline.

‘I first pushed him away and just told him “No, please don’t do that,” and I forget, it’s been 21 years, Lisa, and I forget exactly what he was saying,’ Broaddrick said at that time.

‘It seems like he was making statements that would relate to “Did you not know why I was coming up here?” and I told him at the time, I said, “I’m married, and I have other things going on in my life, and this is something that I’m not interested in.”’

That did not deter Clinton claimed Broaddrick, who also recounted the alleged assault in her 2016 memoir.

‘Then he tries to kiss me again. And the second time he tries to kiss me he starts biting my lip,’ said Broaddrick, crying at this point.

‘He starts to, um, bite on my top lip and I tried to pull away from him. And then he forces me down on the bed. And I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him "No," that I didn’t want this to happen (crying) but he wouldn’t listen to me.’

By that point in the interview, Broaddrick was overcome with tears and emotion.

She said that the alleged assault lasted a few minutes and that after Clinton was done he waited about 10 seconds before declaring: 'I'm going to do it again.'

When that was over, she claims that Clinton made his exit as though nothing had happened between the two.

'When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses,' she said on Dateline.

'And before he goes out the door he says "You better get some ice on that". And he turned and went out the door.'

Her friend Norma Rogers returned shortly after, and has stated in the past that her friend appeared to have been assaulted judging by her torn clothing and swollen lip.

'When Norma came back to the room and found me within 45 minutes after the rape and after he had left the room, you know, I told her all about this,' said Broaddrick.

'And we both agreed at the time, I did not want to share it.'

She also explained the reason for her silence, which is the same reason so many others have kept quiet over the years.

'I was ashamed. I was ashamed, and at the time I thought it was my fault,' explained Broaddrick.

'I accepted that blame that I was stupid. I just didn’t—I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know.'

At the time she was also having an affair with her now husband, who was also one of the people she told about the alleged assault.

The dates of her hotel stay and her descriptions of the hotel and its surroundings all check out, with the nursing home conference and Clinton's campaign schedule putting the two in the same area on the day of the alleged assault.

'I did not continue to volunteer/work for the Clinton campaign following being attacked and raped by Mr. Clinton,' said Broaddrick.

'Following my rape, I actually burned most of the campaign material such as t-shirts and buttons.

'The incident in which Ms. Rodham (now Mrs. Rodham Clinton) threatened me occurred when I stopped by a planned fundraiser before the event so I could return campaign donation money and other donation documents (for obvious legal reasons) to the appropriate representative.'

Broaddrick then returned to her private life as best she could, and refused to come forward with the allegations when asked just before the presidential race in 1992 by an anti-Clinton operative.

She then found herself being called in for the Paula Jones lawsuit, though she viewed what that young woman had suffered as nothing compared to her ordeal.

'When I heard about it, I thought that’s a lucky girl,' said Broaddrick.

'You know, she’s a lucky woman that something worse didn’t happen to her.'

The team put together to assist Jones in her legal action eventually located her and pressured her to testify despite her desire to not relive the allegations.

'I said, “I’m not coming forward. I’ve been quiet for this length of time, and there’s no way you’re going to get me to come forward at all,' recalled Broaddrick.

And when subopenaed by Jones' team she simple submitted a sworn statement denying their belief that she had been raped by the president.

Trumper: Starr made her allegations a footnote in his infamous report because she had never been paid off by the Clintons and did not fit his narrative, said Broaddrick (Broaddrick above with President Trump in 2016)

Clinton's accusers: Broaddrick was invited to one of the debates between Hillary Clinton and Trump alongside Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey (above)

Lawyers for Jones elected to disregard this and instead sent an anonymous letter to Kenneth Starr stating Broaddrick had been raped by Clinton and paid off - an allegation she has never once claimed in her life.

With two conflicting stories emerging at the time, Washington Post reporter Peter Baker decided to track down her friend Rogers and see what she had to say about the incident.

'I tracked this woman down in Oklahoma where she was living, and she seemed surprised when I told her that Juanita Broaddrick had denied it in the affidavit. She said that basically she felt now she had been put in the middle and she didn’t want to be forced testify,' explained Baker.

'She didn’t want to conflict with Juanita. But what she had recalled was obviously different than this affidavit. And her conversation to me made very clear that she was an after-the-fact witness to this event, that she had been told by Juanita Broaddrick 20 years earlier.'

He continued: 'And in my journal that night, I wrote the words My God. Exclamation point. I mean it was just, how do you look at the person who’s your president of the United States and think that he’s capable of something like that?'

Broaddrick did not cooperate with stories and tried to retreat back into her private life when Starr contacted her to testify in his investigation.

'My son said, “Mom, you’re going to have to tell them the truth,”' said Broaddrick.

'I had told my son about it when he was about 19 and he knew everything. And he said, “Mom.” He said, “The Paula Jones lawsuit was a civil lawsuit.” He said, “This is so much more serious.” And he said, “You’ve got to go tell the truth.”'

Broaddrick claims that is exactly what she did, first to Starr and then to Myers on NBC.

Her story did not fit the narrative, or charges, that Starr was focusing on.

'And what they were wanting from me was to find if there was if I had been bought off by the Clinton people. Had I received any money and had I received any threats from the Clintons?', explained Broaddrick.

'And there was nothing, you know. There was no obstruction of justice. I had stayed quiet because that’s what I wanted to do.'

After that she decided to speak to Myers after the NBC correspondent repeatedly reached out and begged her to share her story.

But that soon turned to disappointment when she found out NBC was not airing the interview, and watched it get pushed back week after week.

And so she spoke to other outlets while NBC sat on their once-exclusive interview, including the Post, New York Times and Fox News.

'I tested her story every way I could, again and again and again. And no detail ever changed—it never got better, it never got worse. It was always the same,' explained Myers.

'But understand, there were some at NBC headquarters in New York who wanted to just kill the interview without ever looking at the tape.'

And there was no secret about the reason for the delay.

'There’s no doubt that NBC News was concerned about throwing this interview out in the middle of impeachment proceedings and, as a result, having an impact on the outcome,' noted Myers.

She said she worried at times it might not make it to air, as did current head of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley, who wore a 'Free Lisa' pin around DC.

The interview did finally air, but was soon eclipsed by Lewinsky's first sit-down and the news of Jones $850,000 settlement.

Broaddrick, who was making the most damning claim against the president, was somehow pushed to the side.

CNN went so far as to poll people about her rape claims, and reported that 66 percent of people did not wish to hear about her story any more and wished the media would just move on.

Broaddrick is sometimes painted as an anti-Clinton operative by Democrats, an allegation that seems near impossible to support given the timeline of events.

She chose not to embellish her story, refused to come forward for years and lied in order to avoid the scrutiny that befell her when she finally open up to Starr.

Once she started talking however she has not stopped even though her pro-Trump politics may be at odds with the more prominent voices of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements.

Broaddrick said in a 2016 interview with Candice Jackson that she still suffers because of the alleged assault.

'If I'm riding in a car with friends, I can't sit in the back seat unless it's a four-door car. I guess I just can't handle feeling trapped, like I can't escape. I can't sit in the back of a car or plane unless I'm right by the door.

'It brings back the fear of being held down, like in that hotel room.

'There are so many ways that evil man has affected my life,' Broaddrick, who is now retired after a lifetime running a nursing home, added. 'I try not to think about it too much.

'You don't realize all the ways something like this changes you, the way you do things, your habits and routines, and you don't realize it's because of what he did unless you sit back and think about it.'

She said she even changed the church services she went to so she wouldn't have to listen to the Episcopal 'Prayer for the President'.

She did get some solace, however, when President Trump defeated Hillary in 2016, who she believes enabled her husband's alleged trysts with other women.

Her story is also still back up by people like Rogers, despite the two women losing touch over the years.

Rogers spoke to Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, saying the married Broaddrick was weeping and disheveled and immediately told her the then-attorney general of Arkansas had forced himself on her just minutes earlier.

'She was crying,' recalled Rogers.

'And the thing I think I remember most is that her mouth was all swollen up. It was cut. ... Her pantyhose were all ripped.'

She also said that 40 years later it is still hard to comprehend what happened on that day.

'I think we stopped at least twice to get ice. I would go up and get fresh ice and put it on her mouth because she was trying to keep her face from bruising and looking like something bad had happened to her,' said Rogers.

'It was just crazy. The whole situation was just crazy.'

And as Hillary Clinton herself has said: 'Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.'

As for the person who delayed the story, multiple NBC employees have said that it was the president of NBC News at the time, Andy Lack.

He found himself caught up in allegations he did the same thing to Ronan Farrow with his expose on Harvey Weinstein.