Monica Lewinsky, the woman who had an affair with former President Bill Clinton when she was a White House intern, said in an interview this week that he should have resigned after their affair was exposed.
Lewinsky, 51, had an affair with the president when she was in her early 20s. Clinton was 49 years old when the affair began. Clinton initially denied that he was having an affair with the intern, but later admitted to it. He was impeached, among other things.
After the fallout of the scandal, Clinton remained in office. Lewinsky was subject to intense bullying by the media and had trouble finding employment.
This week, Lewinsky said on the infamous “Call Her Daddy” podcast that the right way for Clinton to respond to their scandal would have been to resign from office.
“I think that the right way to handle a situation like that would have been to probably say it was nobody’s business and to resign,” Lewinsky said.
“Or, to find a way…of staying in office that was not lying and not throwing a young person who is just starting out in the world under the bus,” she added.
Monica Lewinsky believes Bill Clinton should have resigned instead of ‘throwing her under the bus’ pic.twitter.com/We8VkVd5Wp
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 26, 2025
“I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on the world stage, to be torn apart for my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything,” Lewinsky said of the scandal.
“I was lucky enough to hold onto a strand of my true self, but I lost my future,” she acknowledged, adding that she feels grateful for how my life has changed in the last 10 years,” but that was “certainly not a given.”