MONICA LEWINSKY:Notorious intern turned recluse
MONICA LEWINSKY, the White House intern with whom Bill Clinton admitted having an improper relationship from late 1995 until early 1997, initially tried to protect the president.
But she was betrayed by her “friend” and co-worker Linda Tripp, who taped telephone conversations about Lewinskys affair with Clinton, then gave them to the crusading independent counsel Kenneth Starr. After being grilled about a blue dress with a presidential stain, Lewinsky was asked for her last words before a grand jury. “I hate Linda Tripp,” she replied.
In the wake of the scandal, Lewinsky launched a line of handbags, was interviewed by Barbara Walters on ABCs 20/20, co-operated with the British author Andrew Morton in the writing of Monica's Storyand appeared on numerous television programmes in the US and abroad. In 2000 she moved to New York, where she became a fixture of the Manhattan social scene. But she seems to have been uncomfortable with celebrity, telling an autograph-seeker in 1999: I'm kind of known for something thats not so great to be known for.
In a 2004 interview with the London Daily Mail, Lewinsky called Clinton "a revisionist of history" for his portrayal of their affair in his autobiography. She moved to London in 2005, where she studied social psychology at the London School of Economics, earning a masters degree in December 2006.
Not since Greta Garbo said, “I vant to be alone,” has a woman so carefully orchestrated her disappearance from public view. Sightings of Lewinsky are rare. In 2007 she attended the wedding of her friends, the Scottish actor Alan Cumming and the artist Grant Shaffer. Last summer, Lewinsky was photographed lunching with Cumming and Shaffer in the Soho district of New York.
In correspondence last year with Professor Ken Gormley, dean of law at Duquesne University, Lewinsky accused Clinton of lying in his statements to the grand jury, as recounted in Gormleys history of the Lewinsky scandal, The Death of American Virtue.
“Her family instructed and requested that I not pass on any contact information,” Gormley said.
In recent months, TimeMagazine, Vanity Fairand NBC have tried but failed to reach her.