“The support of my family and friends was really the flow that helped get me through everything, and they continually moored me back to the person that I am,” she said.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Monica Lewinsky, whose name became globally recognized in 1989 during the scandal involving an affair with President Bill Clinton, shared her experiences and advice on overcoming public humiliation and combating bullying.
Lewinsky was the featured guest at the Sacramento Speaker Series, an event moderated by “California Tonight” host Edie Lambert. Before the main event, the two sat down for a conversation about surviving the intense scrutiny and the work she does now to promote compassion and empathy.
She has compared her experience to being a “patient zero” of cyberbullying and public shaming. The scandal was first reported on an internet site, a new development for breaking news in 1998. It was one of the first big cases where ordinary people could jump online to judge and ridicule a private citizen on a global scale.
A mistake when she was 22 years old made it extremely hard to find a job or live a normal life, even a decade later.
Lewinsky credited her family and friends for helping her through the challenges she faced.
“The support of my family and friends was really the flow that helped get me through everything, and they continually moored me back to the person that I am,” she said. “I had this caricature of myself being built publicly, to then have people reminding me … this is who I am.”
She emphasized the importance of not suffering in silence when facing bullying. She highlighted a tool from the Diana Award in London, which encourages young people to identify five trusted adults they can turn to for support.
“I think that practice of thinking through who you might go to if you were to experience bullying allows the time that someone’s suffering in silence to shorten,” she said. “The worst things happen when someone’s suffering in silence.”
Discussing societal changes over the past three decades, Lewinsky noted the emergence of terminology like “cyberbullying” and “fat shaming,” which did not exist during her public ordeal.
She also acknowledged progress in valuing women’s voices and providing resources for women, while recognizing that more work remains. Lewinsky praised the Me Too movement and its founder, Tarana Burke, for their efforts to help women who have experienced harassment and worse.
“That organization does incredible things to help women who have suffered from many different traumas,” she said.
Lewinsky also addressed the role of media and public consumption in perpetuating shame and humiliation. Headlines that amplify those stories in order to drive “clicks” support an industry driven by ad revenue.
“I try to be mindful in terms of, how many articles on this person’s divorce am I clicking on? Do I need to read one more?” she said.
She encouraged people to curb their natural curiosities and instead support positive content.
“Not only just not clicking on all the clickbait and the negative pieces as much, but also finding ways to lift up and support the positive pieces that we might see, or leaving a positive comment for someone,” she suggested.
In addition to Lewinsky’s work as an anti-bullying activist, she is a producer, public speaker, and the award-winning host of the “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky” podcast.
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Lewinsky says she was deeply affected by the death of Tyler Clementi in 2010. The 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman died by suicide shortly after his roommate secretly livestreamed and cyber-harassed him about an intimate encounter with another man. She began to find her voice as an activist after reading about his case, and she recommends the Tyler Clementi Foundation website for tools to help people end online and offline bullying.
You can find Lewinsky’s podcast, “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky,” here.
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