Lewinsky: I Was A ‘Virgin To Humiliation’ Before That Day

Monica Lewinsky interviewed for National Geographic special about the 1990s.
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Monica Lewinsky returned to the public eye for the second time in as many months on Tuesday with a TV interview in which she recalled feeling like the “most humiliated woman in the world” the day her affair with President Bill Clinton was revealed.

“That was one of the worst days of my life. I was a virgin to humiliation of that level, until that day,” she said, in what was being promoted as her first interview since 2003.

Lewinsky, now 40, will soon appear in a new National Geographic special, “The ’90s: The Last Great Decade?” A clip from the special aired Tuesday morning on NBC’s “Today” show.

The clip featured Lewinsky speaking out about media coverage at the time of the scandal and her thoughts on the day in 1998 that the Starr Report, which was compiled by prosecutor Kenneth Starr and detailed the affair, was released.

“To have my narrative ripped from me, and turned into the Starr report, and things that were turned over or things they delved out of my computer that I thought were deleted. I mean it was just violation after violation,” she said.

Last month, Vanity Fair published an essay from Lewinsky in which she opened up about the scrutiny she has faced, and continues to face, since the sex scandal, writing it was “time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.”

Although Lewinsky called her recent public reemergence an attempt to move on from the scandal, “Today” co-anchor Matt Lauer questioned whether that was possible.

“She said it’s time to ‘bury the beret and the blue dress,’ does she talk at all about whether speaking out like this will accomplish that? Or will it just kind of rekindle a lot of the talk?”

“She seems to be making a concerted effort now to put herself back out there a bit more,” NBC News correspondent Craig Melvin said.

Watch the video from the “Today” show:

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