Monica Lewinsky Infamous White House intern, Monica Samille Lewinsky, was born on July 23, 1973, in San Francisco, California. Growing up in affluent Beverly Hills, Lewinsky attended school with several future stars, but often felt ostracized by her classmates. An overweight child, she suffered from low self-esteem, and found solace in her school’s drama department. In her 1998 biography, My Story, Lewinsky describes being excluded from one of Tori Spelling’s birthday parties in grade school, when virtually the entire rest of the class was invited. After graduating from Beverly Hills High School, Lewinsky attended Santa Monica College before transferring to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1995. Fresh out of college, Lewinsky then moved to Washington, D.C., where she landed an internship at the White House, which would forever alter the course of her life.
As a White House intern, Lewinsky quickly developed a crush on the charismatic then-president, Bill Clinton. After a few brief flirtatious encounters, Lewinsky soon began making excuses to visit the President at the Oval Office, and an affair ensued between the twenty-three-year-old intern and the forty-nine-year-old married President. It wasn’t long before Lewinsky’s superiors became suspicious of the time she was spending in the Oval Office, and transferred her to The Pentagon in April of 1996. Lewinsky continued her affair with the President, although their time together was now less frequent. Lewinsky complained about this to her pentagon colleague and confidante at the time, Linda Tripp, who was secretly recording their telephone conversations. In January 1998, Lewinsky submitted an affidavit in the sexual harassment case leveled at the President by Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones. Linda Tripp then turned over her taped conversations with Lewinsky to Independent Counsel, which was in turn added to the investigation in the Jones case as evidence of possible perjury. Lewinsky was questioned again as part of the widening investigation, and admitted that her relationship with Clinton involved oral sex in the Oval Office. Clinton denied under oath ever having "a sexual affair," "sexual relations," or "a sexual relationship" with Lewinsky, later claiming in a televised press conference: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." The highly-publicized investigation and subsequent impeachment of the President catapulted Lewinsky into national scandal, making her a popular pop culture punch line on many late-night shows and a prime target for paparazzi. Devastated by the scandal, Lewinsky spent time living as a virtual recluse, knitting and spending time with her family. Shortly after the media attention receded, she began designing handbags sold over the Internet. In 2003, she reemerged in the media as the host of a short-lived reality television dating program, Mr. Personality.
In 2005, Lewinsky pursued higher education overseas, enrolling in the master's program in social psychology at the London School of Economics. YUDDY |
