How I was left suicidal, turned down $10million in offers and was made a scapegoat to save Bill Clinton's career, by Monica Lewinsky at 40

Full text of the tell-all article written by Bill Clinton's mistress has been released and she accurately predicts the political fall out



Lewinsky, now 40, feels motivated to help victims of cyber bullying

Said she fought off suicidal thoughts after the 1998 scandal

'Thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the internet'

Turned down offers of up to $10million because they would have relied on her trading on her infamy; denies that the Clintons paid her off



Said that she remained 'virtually reclusive' during Hillary's 2008 campaign but 'should I put my life on hold for another 8 to 10 years?'

Playfully corrected Beyonce for putting a lyric in her song saying that a man 'Monica Lewinski'd all on my gown'



The full version of Monica Lewinsky's tell-all essay has been released and she accurately predicted how conservative political pundits would read into the timing of her re-emergence.



'Despite what some headlines will falsely report about this piece, this is not about Me versus the Clintons. Their lives have moved on; they occupy important and powerful places on the global stage. I wish them no ill will,' she writes in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.



'When I hear of Hillary's prospective candidacy, I cannot help but fear the next wave of paparazzi, the next wave of 'Where is she now?' stories, the next reference to me in Fox News's coverage of the primaries. I've begun to find it debilitating to plot out the cycle of my life, to some degree, on the political calendar.'

Happy to break free: Monica Lewinsky, now 40, said that she has decided to not wait in the shadows for fear of derailing Hillary Clinton's expected presidential run in 2016

Name calling: Letters from Bill Clinton's presidency revealed that then-First Lady Hillary told a friend that Lewinsky was a 'narcissistic loony toon' and Lewinsky has since responded saying that wasn't the worst thing she could be called (Mrs Clinton pictured Tuesday at a talk in Maryland)

Excerpts of Lewinsky's piece were released on Tuesday and the full print version was released in select U.S. cities on Wednesday morning.



Just as the 40-year-old former White House intern guessed, Fox News dedicated segments on their Tuesday shows to debating the essay and the implications on the 2016 race.



Former Second Lady Lynne Cheney went so far as to theorize that Lewinsky came out with her story this early in the 2016 presidential calendar so that Mrs Clinton won't have to deal with it when she announces her presumed candidacy.

Instead, Lewinsky described it as being a matter of her no longer wanting to put her life on hold.



'Being a conscientious Democrat- and aware that I could be used as a tool for the left or the right- I have remained silent for 10 years,' she writes in the Vanity Fair article.



She also notes that the scandal and her ensuing notoriety has had clear repercussions in her personal life, as her friends have gone off to get married and have children, while she regularly gets rejected from job opportunities and decided to flee to England to get her master's in social psychology at the London School of Economics.



Moving on: Monica Lewinsky has purposefully kept a private life in the wake of the scandal but now feels she can be an advocate for those who have the internet partially to blame for their problems (pictured in October 2012)

That embrace: Lewinsky maintains that she had a consensual relationship with then-President Clinton but felt used later by prosecutors and investigators

Lewinsky explained that she took great care to cause as few problems for Mrs Clinton as possible when she first ran for president in 2008, but has had a change of heart when it comes to this next, expected run.



'I remained virtually reclusive, despite being inundated with press requests,' she said of the 2008 campaign.



'Recently I’ve found myself gun-shy yet again, fearful of "becoming an issue" should she decide to ramp up her campaign. But should I put my life on hold for another 8 to 10 years?' -Monica Lewinsky on her decision to open up ahead of Hillary Clinton's likely 201 6 bid

'I put off announcing several media projects in 2012 until after the election. (They were subsequently canceled—and, no, I wasn’t offered $12million for a salacious tell-all book, contrary to press reports.)



'And recently I’ve found myself gun-shy yet again, fearful of ‘becoming an issue’ should she decide to ramp up her campaign. But should I put my life on hold for another 8 to 10 years?'

She revealed that the decade-long silence has come at a cost, as she turned down offers that would've amounted to $10million because she 'didn't feel like the right thing to do'.

'It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,' she said, poking fun at the infamous '90s attire that she is so closely associated with.

'Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position,' she wrote in the essay.

'The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.'

In a lighter portion of the essay, she lashed out at Beyonce for turning her name into a verb in her upcoming song 'Partition', taking aim at the specific anatomical inaccuracies in the lyric.



'Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant "Bill Clinton’d all on my gown," not "Monica Lewinsky’d,"’ she wrote.



Coming back out: Monica Lewinsky accurately predicted that her decision to speak out would be interpreted as having a role in the 2016 presidential primaries (pictured in London in 2013)

Still known: Lewinsky said that she regrets the Clinton affair even though they were both consenting adults when it occurred (pictured in 2006 at left and 2011 at right)

The constant speculation about Hillary Clinton's expected run for the presidency in 2016 has brought out the old skeletons, and when a slew of documents from Bill's presidency were released earlier this year, it revealed a note from the then-First Lady to her close friend Diane Blair wherein Hillary referred to Lewinsky as a 'narcissistic loony toon'.



'My first thought, as I was getting up to speed: If that’s the worst thing she said, I should be so lucky,' Lewinsky wrote in response to that specific insult.



'Mrs. Clinton, I read, had supposedly confided to Blair that, in part, she blamed herself for her husband’s affair (by being emotionally neglectful) and seemed to forgive him. Although she regarded Bill as having engaged in "gross inappropriate behavior," the affair was, nonetheless, "consensual (was not a power relationship)."’



In the records kept by Blair, Mrs Clinton is revealed to have lumped the string of mistresses- Lewinsky included- who claimed to have sexual encounters with her husband, together as 'whiney women'.



Lewinsky also rejected the 'narcissistic' insult on other grounds, citing how she turned down a deal for immunity by rejecting the interrogator's offer of no jail time if she wore a wire and taped conversations between Clinton confidantes.



'Courageous or foolish, maybe, but narcissistic and loony?' Lewinsky writes in the Vanity Fair article.

'(Hillary Clinton) may have faulted her husband for being inappropriate, but I find her impulse to blame the Woman- not only me, but herself- troubling.'







Under cover: Lewinsky has made several media appearances over the past decade and a half and tried to launch her own handbag line as well as a HBO series but nothing stuck (pictured in October 2012)

She went on to say that she is fully aware of the impact of the relationship and she is coming clean with her full feelings.

'I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened,' she wrote.



'At the time- at least from my point of view- it was an authentic connection, with emotional intimacy, frequent visits, plans made, phone calls and gifts exchanged... I would give anything to go back and reqind the tape.'



Lewinsky was an intern at the White House when she began having a sexual relationship with then-President Bill Clinton in 1996 before being transferred to the Pentagon when her superiors began getting nervous about the affair.



She began confiding in her new colleague, Linda Tripp, who in turn started recording her conversations with Lewinsky wherein she detailed her trysts with the President.



Tripp turned over the recordings to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and they were used as one of the largest pieces of evidence in the grand jury investigation.

The story broke in January 1998 and though Newsweek had enough information to run the story, it was initially reported by the Drudge Report who used Newsweek's reticence to run the story as the angle on his own coverage.



Iconic: Lewinsky jokes that it is time to 'burn the beret' that she was associated with from the time of the scandal

Sticking together: The family went on their annual summer holiday to Martha's Vineyard in August 1998 (pictured) but the former President later revealed that he had spent months sleeping on the couch earlier that year

Connections: Lewinsky was an intern at the White House at the time of her affair, and she says that the relationship was entirely consensual

Lewinsky was given transactional immunity in order to testify. The case against them comprised largely of the Tripp recordings, her blue dress that was stained with his semen and his admittance that he 'did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate'.



For their part, the Clintons have used their respective autobiographies to share their side of the scandal, as Bill said how he spent nights sleeping on the couch for at least two months after admitting to the Lewinsky affair.



Hillary wrote that there was a time when Buddy, the family dog, was the only one willing to speak with him.

In the Vanity Fair piece, Lewinsky claimed that- in spite of the landmark interview with Barbara Walters around the time of the affair and several random media appearances- she has stayed silent on her own accord.

'So silent, in fact, that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth,' she writes in the June issue of Vanity Fair.

'I turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do.'

She said that she was regularly rejected from jobs because of her 'history' and 'managed to get by (barely, at times) with my own projects, usually with start-ups that I have participated in, or with loans from friends and family'.



Famous friends: Lewinsky has made some apolitical friends, and was spotted having lunch with actor Alan Cumming (left) in New York in 2009

Instead of trading on her name to promote brands- as opportunities to do so have come up in the past 15 years- she now feels motivated to help those who been victims of online bullying.

The turning point for her was the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, a closeted gay student whose make out with a boy was live streamed by his roommate.

The story hit close to home for Lewinsky because her mother took it so personally.



On newsstands: Lewinsky's tell-all essay is featured in the June issue of Vanity Fair

'She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal,' Lewinsky wrote, going on to explain that she never actually attempted to take her own life but did have suicidal thoughts.



'Thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.'

She views the Vanity Fair piece as a sign that she is ready to stop 'tiptoeing around my past- and other people's futures. 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. (What this will cost me, I will soon find out.)'

Despite her latest proclamations, this is not the first time that Lewinsky has spoken out after the scandal that led to the only impeachment of a president in the 20th century.

She granted interviews to Barbara Walters and Larry King around the time of the affair, and has spoken out infrequently in the subsequent years.



She appeared in an episode of comedian Tom Green's MTV show when she was launching a handbag business and answered audience questions about her affair during an HBO special. She has also appeared as a guest on Saturday Night Live, The Jimmy Kimmel Show, The View and Graham Norton's talk show.



Lewinsky has struggled with her weight throughout her life and was hired as a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig in 2000 but more recent photos showed that the results had not stuck.



Vanity Fair only released one photo with the teaser of the Lewinsky article, which will be published in full with the release of the June issue, but she is seen looking healthy, lying on a couch while wearing a white dress.



WHERE ARE THEY NOW? KEY PLAYERS IN THE LEWINSKY SCANDAL

Linda Tripp secretly recorded her colleague, Monica Lewinsky, when she revealed her affair with the President Linda Tripp:

Tripp worked at the Pentagon and became close with Lewinsky after the then 23-year-old intern was transferred from the White House in 1996. Lewinsky revealed the sexual affair with Clinton and, on the advice of Goldberg, Tripp began recording their conversations. She turned those more than 20 hours of tapes over to Kenneth Starr in exchange for immunity. She was also the one to convince Lewinsky not to have a blue dress dry cleaned because it had the President's semen stain on it, arguing that it was the young intern's 'ultimate protection' if prosecutors would come after her. Tripp was later charged with illegally recording Lewinsky but those charges were dripped. She was fired from her Pentagon job on the last day of the Clinton administration in 2001 and received a $595,000 payout from the government because she successfully argued that she was not granted a promotion due to her involvement in the scandal and other related charges. Her most recent update came in 2003 during an appearance on Larry King's talk show where she revealed she had breast cancer. She is last believed to have moved to Virginia with her German architect husband.

Lucianne Goldberg:

Lucianne Golbderg convinced Tripp to record the Lewinsky conversations The book publisher played a pivotal role in the Lewinsky scandal by becoming close with Linda Tripp and advising her to tape her conversations with Lewinsky. Goldberg was the one who told Tripp that Maryland- where she was based- had one-party consent laws which would make it legal for Tripp to record Lewinsky without her knowledge. (That was not actually the case.) she also urged Tripp to both hand over the tapes to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr and to Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff. Aftr the scandal died down, she began writing for right-leaning websites and hosting her own radio show though that is no longer nationally syndicated.

Kenneth Starr: Kenneth Starr was the independent counsel who led the investigation Appointed as the Independent Counsel at the start of the Clinton administration in 1994, Starr had a leading role in the investigations of a number of scandals but the Lewinsky affair was by far the most infamous. Paula Jones, a former employee from Arkansas, was suing the President over an alleged sexual assault when he asked Clinton about his relationship with Lewinsky for the first time. In that deposition, Clinton denied having 'sexual relations' with the intern, and Starr then used the semen-stained dress and hours of surreptitiously obtained Starr recordings to charge the President with perjury. Starr gained worldwide recognition for his role in the scandal and shared the Time ‘Man of the Year’ title with Clinton in 1998. He resigned as independent counsel the next year and went into academics, first teaching law at NYU and George Mason before being named the dean of the law school at Pepperdine University in 2004. He went on to continue work as a lawyer and notably represented Clinton fundraiser Jeffrey Epstein in his 2007 statutory rape case. He was named the president of Baylor University in 2010 and continues to hold that position.





