March 7, 2023 • 33 mins
Monica Lewinsky opens up about the fallout from her most famous ‘Now, What?’ moment and how she learned to cope with both the shame of her experience and the weight of decades-old abuse. Then, Brooke and Monica discuss the ways in which public shaming has shaped the 21st Century, and what they wish private citizens understood about life in the public eye.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are cutwrenching, but all are
unapologetically human and remind us that every success and every
setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice answers
one question, Now, what what did that? Strong? Wells, I'm
(00:51):
not getting off the swing, little girl dream for herself.
Oh gosh, let's see. Well when I I mean, it's
given my history, it is pretty funny that for a
little while, when I was very young, I had decided
that I wanted to grow up and be president. So well,
(01:13):
you know, okay, oh you know they got into the
Oval office. Yeah. I always say that, wrong way, wrong track.
My guest today doesn't need an introduction, but rather a reintroduction,
one that I feel is long overdue. Monica Lewinsky is
(01:34):
a producer, an activist, a public speaker and a contributing
editor to Vanity Fair. In the twenty five years since
her relationship with former President Bill Clinton made her both
a household name and patient zero for online harassment, she's
become an expert on the effects of cyberbullying, earning a
(01:55):
master's degree in social psychology from the London School of
Economics and Political Science. Her now viral ted talk on
the matter has racked up more than twenty one million views.
And that was just the beginning Monica's now what moment.
It's clear, but her resilience, her drive, and her refusal
(02:16):
to let the world make her bitter, that story has
yet to be told. I so admire her. She's one
of the bravest people I know, and I am honored
that she made a point to join me. So here
is Monica Lewinsky. First of all, Monica Lewinsky, I just
want to say hi, friend, and thank you so much
(02:37):
for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me Brook,
it's so sweet, And congratulations on the documentary. Thank you. Yes,
I think that you are going to really appreciate it
and identify with it in lots of different little ways.
But just to kind of you jump in a little
(03:00):
what are you working on right now? So for the
last several years I have been focusing on and trying
to build a career in producing god producing television. I
saw the documentary fifteen Minutes of Shame. I thought it
was beautifully done. Oh thank you. Yeah. Max Joseph who
was the director, did a really fantastic job and the
(03:23):
whole team. We did it during the pandemic, which in
a way was a blessing to have work. You know,
it's something to focus on, but was certainly challenging to
film a documentary. Well yeah, to have access to the
to what you need to put in the documentary, right.
But you know what I thought was what really stuck
out for me is, you know, people think that your
(03:47):
experiences were just so one of a kind and sort
of isolated, and what you've done with a documentary is
really bring to light the power of public shame and
the vitriol and how it happens all the time, cyberbullying,
(04:08):
the press, all of the time, all around us. In
the incidences were for these different people in your story
included are so varied, and that's something that I guess
I never really thought about it that way. Well, I
think that it's you know, I mean I've seen certainly
in the last twenty five years. I can't believe it's
(04:30):
been that long, but in the twenty five years, since
nineteen ninety eight, I have seen this sort of online
world virgin in myriad ways. Right, So there was we
started to have different kinds of aol chat and then
my Space and blogging, and eventually, you know, we got
to this sort of explosion of social media. And I
(04:51):
think that with social media so many people having voices
really changed our cultural landscape that way. And you know,
I'm not the only person who's seen this. I mean,
I think many people have commented that we've just started
to see this kind of behavior that used to only
be lobbed at at public figures now start to be
(05:13):
lobbed at private people as well. And with fifteen minutes
of shame, I think what we really wanted to do.
I mean, it's only ninety minutes. So it really was
kind of this introductory examination of asking these questions of
like how did we you know, how did we get
to where we are today with public shaming and where
the fuck are we going? I mean, and you talk
(05:35):
about it public shaming has been part of the world
and an existence at the beginning of humanity, exactly exactly.
And I you know, something that we discovered while we
were working on the film that was really fascinating to
me was kind of this turning point that happened around
from public shaming having been kind of a social tool
(05:57):
in communities, and then when the printing press came along,
it now all of a sudden went out of the
public square sort of person to person or gossip, and
it's now on the printed page, and it now started
to become a commodity. You know. Throw Rupert Murdoch in there,
and the tabloid culture, and you really start to see
(06:19):
the roots of how we got to where we are
today and how indelible it is and how forever it is.
Yeah it is, And I think, you know, it's like, um,
I sometimes use this analogy that I think about, you know,
we all we all rubber neck when we see a
car accident on the freeway, you know, but how many
of us? Certainly not me? But you know, does anybody
(06:42):
ever five minutes or five hours or five days think, oh,
I wonder how that person is? We don't you know?
It sort of comes in. We were we're going to
see blood, you know, yeah, exactly. Well, it really resonated
with me because when I was a kid, I was
tabloid fodder, I mean all the time, and it was
(07:02):
about my sexuality, and it was about and I was
portrayed a certain way, and everybody had an opinion. It
wasn't on social media. I don't. I don't think I
would have survived if the social media had existed. My
mother kept it all from me, and I didn't read
all of it until much much later, because I just
found all the boxes. And I do identify with you
(07:24):
in that way. And you hit on the idea. In
your documentary fifteen Minutes of Shame. You open with this line.
Imagine waking up one morning with the whole world suddenly
knowing your name and talking about you. Not because you
cured a disease or saved your neighbor's house from burning down.
Everyone knows who you are, because your secret, your mistake
(07:46):
has now been made public. That is so vulnerable and honest,
and I just have such empty for you, and I'm
just so sorry that it that it had to happen
that way for you. Well, I mean, you were just
(08:06):
talking about your experiences, and you were even younger, much
younger than I was. I mean, it was that the
technology was different in the world. And it also I'm
sure a lot of the attention you were getting was positive.
I know there might have you were mentioning some of
the negative. So there was that difference. I don't think
I had a positive No one liked me. But I mean,
(08:29):
you admitted you made a mistake or you said you
did right, but then the level of abuse that was
thrown at you, it's unfathomable. It wasn't I think too,
what you know. One aspect that became very interesting to me,
and I think we tried to thread into the doc
in the personal stories, was that these kinds of incidents
(08:52):
aren't just what happens in the moment. The trauma and
the shame lives with you for such a long time,
and in my instance, and actually in sort of all
of these the public shamings that happen online, no matter
the degree it impacts your life, you know, And I didn't.
I didn't actually see the full effect until probably two thousand,
(09:17):
let's see two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight,
when I had gone to graduate school. I tried to,
you know, sort of build this new scaffolding of who
I was as a person coming into adulthood. And I
couldn't get a job. And that was when I realized like, oh,
(09:38):
this is still here, and this is has imprinted on
my life in a way. And that's actually when I
came into some anger. It took me that long to
come into any anger too. I mean I think that
there's it's like dealing with death or you know, the
five stages of grief. And but you talk so eloquently
(10:00):
about shame and shame coming off in layers. Can you
talk a little bit about that to me, tell me
how you do it? Yes. Let me credit my therapist,
who's a trauma psychiatrist. So, I mean, she's really really
helped me to see in different times of times that
(10:20):
I've come into sessions and gone, well, I think I'm
depressed again, you know, And when we unpack that and
really examine it, it's usually grief, and that grief is
usually connected to some part of a loss for me
that usually tacks back to ninety eight in some way,
(10:41):
you know, And so I think that there, I think
what happens is is it's this like it's this this
is like such a bad metaphor, but it's sort of
like peeling an onion, except if you imagine that in
between the layers that you're peeling, you're healing and your chaining.
So it's with more awareness, you know, it's with growth
(11:04):
and more awareness that I think you kind of come
to that next stage almost like in a video game.
You know, you've like passed that layer and now, oh,
here's this other grief or shame aspect that you're looking at.
Do you find forgiveness for yourself in doing that? I
(11:27):
try really hard. I need a lot of reminders for that,
I think, like I try to work on it from
many different angles, you know. So one thing I started
doing a couple of years ago is here I can
show you what. I have photos of me as a
kid all over my health, like different photos, and I've
(11:51):
sort of put them there to remind myself to like
send love to that in her child, that little girl,
remind her she's safe today. So that's one way I
do it. Another is, you know, a mantra my therapist
gave me of like, rather than beat myself up trying
to just like yeah, that's what I do sometimes when
(12:12):
I get anxious. Sometimes when I'm scared, I blah blah
blah blah blah, whatever the thing is that I don't
want to be doing. We're talking about the concept of shame,
and one thing that really strikes me about our conversation,
which I've also heard you speak about before, is that,
(12:37):
for you, and for many young women, myself being one
of them, your sense of shaming yourself started at a
really young age. Oh yeah, a thousand percent. I mean
I think that it was you know, I think that
there there aspects like another I'm just trying to think
of how to phrase this because it sort of mirrors
(12:57):
what we were just talking about with the layers of
shame in a way, is that there's also layers of
awareness that comes. So for me, it wasn't until my
life started changing in twenty fourteen and people started to
see me for more of my true self. I was
able to earn an income and support myself in my forties.
(13:20):
As that started to happen, I was able to kind
of say certain other issues that had always been lurking of,
you know, trauma, different traumas from before ninety eight, you know,
from my younger years in high school. I also was
raised in La so being a little chubby Jewish girl
(13:41):
was like, I mean, not the Jewish part, but the
you know, sort of the didn't fit in here, you know. So,
I mean I remember I went on my first diet,
I think when I was maybe eleven, maybe you know,
and I just you know, and now now I think
it's I'm sure you've experienced it too, because you also,
(14:04):
you know, you've always been looked at for your beauty
and which you have both inside and out. Anybody who
spends five minutes with you knows that, ah, we're in
the club, we'll get jackets. So but so now you're
eleven years old, do you do that? Do you do this?
(14:24):
Self imposed? Again? What were you like as a little girl, Like, yes,
that was it was self imposed. But I think it's
probably what I absorbed, um from the culture, what I
absorbed from school, I you know, but as a kid,
I mean, like my mom always says that she just
(14:45):
I was very strong willed and that I knew like,
I mean, both of my parents sort of still tease
me that, you know. One of the first sentences I
ever said before I was two was like, hands on
my hips, you are not the boss of me, you know,
so um, and I think that's that's that's still with me.
But um my, you know, my mom will joke and say,
(15:06):
I think she feels like she was just never strong
enough to be the parent to discipline me or to
you know, to shape the kind of strong, strong willed
kid that I was. What did that that strong willed
I'm not getting off the swing, little girl um dream
for herself. Oh gosh, um let's see. Well when I mean,
(15:29):
I mean, it's it's given my history. It is pretty
funny that for a little while when I was very young,
I m had decided that I wanted to grow up
and be president. So that's you know, okay, well you
got there. You know, you can always say that it's
(15:50):
like wrong way, wrong track, Uh, definitely not the right way.
And I went through different um stages of I think
it was always caring about people. My dad is a
doctor and my mom was a social worker for a while,
and so I sort of grew up in this helping environment. Um.
(16:10):
That was just kind of an undercurrent in my family
of like, you help people. Um, And so I think
that there that that was always interesting to me and
so it wasn't it wasn't really a surprise when ultimately
I was interested in psychology also because I was fucked
up so well you talked about I mean trauma. My god,
(16:31):
you definitely went through a drauma. So did you did
you think you wanted to be a therapist or initially
actually so from high school. I did a lot of
costume design in high school, and so I actually was
looking into that as a career. But I think my
parents sort of, you know, like many parents wanted, you know, okay,
(16:55):
choose choose a major. That's sort of something where you
could go get a job tomorrow if you had to.
But with psychology, I didn't feel I'd be able to
learn the skills to leave work at home, and so
I wasn't interested in becoming a therapist. I was very
interested in forensic psychology. So I was fascinated by that
(17:16):
intersection of law and psychology in everything from jury selection
to you know, the mind of a criminal. Like my
dream job was sort of working at the FBI. So
again and again, my alliance, like the Monica the story,
you know, one bad path after the other, one crooked path,
you know, or but what do you think you were
(17:38):
trying to figure out about yourself in that those twenties,
you know, looking for I think that professionally I was.
I was really interested and I've always been interested in
kind of solving puzzles and problems. You know, understanding the
cause of something is really interesting to me. And the
(17:59):
idea that when you unlock that key and understand something,
you can change behavior individually collectively. Personally, I think I
was I was looking for validation. I think I felt
like I was this very kind of split person, you know,
(18:21):
one who was young and naive and who was looking
for adoration and validation that I was lovable. And I
think then there was this other part of me that was,
you know, exploring who who Who was I? And that
was a lot of when I moved to Portland, Oregon,
of like you try on different identities. You know, nowadays
(18:44):
people kids do that as a teenager on social media,
but for me that happened, you know, in my late
teens in early twenties. Well, and then you get validation
from the most important person in the world practically, and
that's can I say, I don't know if I'm going
(19:05):
to get in trouble for this, but I get it.
I get that. I mean, in reading the Andrew Morton
book that you did collaborate with, I was struck by
sort of the empathy and the understanding sexuality. Wise, there's
a quote and you say, I don't see sexuality as
(19:27):
being something to hide away in the dark or be
ashamed of. I think our sexuality is something to be honored,
cherished and valued. That is such a fascinating piece of you.
How do you think those two things happened in your psyche?
Was it? Do you think a reaction to the shame
that you had about your weight and the struggle was
(19:50):
a defiance Those two things coexisting really is fascinating to me. Yeah,
it's I mean it's interesting to me too. Where it
also takes on a whole other layer, is I um,
I had had an experience when I was fourteen that
(20:12):
I didn't even recognize as being an unwanted sexual experience
until I was in my forties. So I look back
on a lot of my behavior and it's here. There
are probably other things that happened when I was even
younger than that that someone led to that situation, and
so I think that there was a lot of dissociation
(20:35):
for me you know a lot, and I know there
are a lot of young women who go through and
men who go through that too, and so it's it's interesting.
It's not that I feel differently than that quote now,
but I think I was twenty five years old, I
had I had been trying to that part of me
that was trying to figure out who was I. An
(20:56):
aspect of my social identity to myself was I'm comfortable
with my sexuality and it's a good thing, and this
is what young women should do. And the truth is
is like underneath all of that, because I see it
now and also impacted by what happened in ninety eight,
it's like the intimacy issues, you know, the real sort
(21:18):
of the very bearing of your soul and and being
physically and sexually intimate with someone and emotionally intimate, you know,
the difficulties that can happen there, and well, unavailable people
in some aspects too. There's something in that and it's
not and I'm sure you know it's not just a
(21:39):
wedding ring that makes someone unavailable. I mean there's the
you know, we could probably have a whole museum exhibit
of different kinds of unavailability and you know. I mean,
I'll be I'm forty nine, I'll be turning fifty in July.
And this last year has been so much about acceptance
for me, of just sort of recognizing, okay, where am
(22:01):
I and and accepting that. And I you know, there's
there's a part of me that looks at some of
my relationship history and it has just gotten to a
point where I'm like, I don't, I don't know. Maybe
maybe I can't do that. Maybe I have this really
deep I mean, I'm so lucky I have. I have
incredible friends. I have really deep emotional intimacy with these people.
(22:23):
There's there's not a barrier there, and yet I think,
I don't know, I seem to don't cry, lift off,
don't don't don't say it's not but also great. But
it's just I think that there's also it doesn't mean
I can't have connection, it doesn't mean I won't evolve,
it's you know, where things may not shift. You know
(22:45):
that I'm hearing a lot of people who are trying
MDMA therapy and having a lot of success, and especially
with PTSD, so you know, who knows. But I'm not
trying to It's not like a Saba or you know,
violin playing moment of like, oh I I've you know,
retired from romance or anything. I think it's just about
(23:08):
coming into your own being okay with with where things are.
It doesn't mean you become complacent, but you just you're okay.
You didn't just become okay. You know, I want to
I want to really applaud you for all of the
work and the time and the willingness to confront and talk.
And you know you didn't just push things up, shove
(23:31):
stuff under the carpet. And you know you've you've had
there's been a lot of abusiveness towards you and towards
that little girl, and well, I talk a lot about
this about a reclaiming of yourself and I didn't start
that until my fifties. And I'm happy for you for
(23:55):
this next phase because I think it's a blooming. It's
a it's a different type of a blossoming. But you've
done the hard work to get there. I have I'm
going to I will accept that. So thank you. It
is it's I was actually just saying yesterday to someone
(24:16):
who has for positive reasons but kind of come into
a lot of attention in a fast way, somewhat unexpectedly,
and I was saying, how in order to do in
twenty twenty one, when Impeachment was coming out and a
month later fifteen Minutes of Shame was launching, and I
(24:38):
was needing to do a lot of things that are
very uncomfortable for me. The amount of support that I
had to build for myself is crazy, you know. I
mean it's the regular therapist, the somatic therapist, the energy work,
the friend of his, this other energy work, the crystals,
the the you know, the person I work with practice
(25:00):
seeing and hearing questions that could upset me so that
I'm able to show up because it's really scary for
me to show up publicly that way. What's interesting is
you did so many interviews, yeah, back in the day,
(25:21):
and you were so open and so I'm so curious
too in looking back at them. What do you think
about them? What is your opinion of the Barbara Walters interview?
Because I have an opinion about my Barbara Walters interview. Yeah,
it's um. You know. I Barbara and I had a
friendship that you know, went on until she passed recently.
(25:44):
Although I think like a number of people. I heard
from her less and less the last couple of years,
but from that whole period. I mean, those those kinds
of interviews are complicated to look at now because where
they're fascinating when you're not the person who's the subject,
is to see, oh, this is a reflection of where
we were in the culture. It was okay to say this,
(26:05):
It was okay to ask that of a young person,
and I for me and maybe this is you know,
not that there's a right answer, but that whole period
of I just look back on it, and what feels
sad to me was I had this very naive view
(26:26):
at the time that if people just got to know me,
they would go, oh, oh okay, you're not all these
awful things that we thought. And I truly thought that
after I sat down and did this, you know, big
interview with Barbara and had had participated in the book
with Andrew. I mean that was more also to help
pay legal fees and things that I thought, oh, okay,
(26:48):
then people will they'll get it, they'll understand, people will
like me. And I was so wrong. I was so wrong.
I mean, it took over fifteen years for people to
be in a place the world to be in a place,
new generations, for people to be willing to sort of
ratch the surface of my true self. But you're you're
(27:11):
preyed upon, and you're I mean, the betrayal is what
I'm I mean from Linda Trip's betrayal, the non admission
of relationship, with Bill's betrayal, the people who knew me,
you know, they were a handful of people who who
who knew me, who were in that who still made
(27:34):
the choices they made. You know, um, and that it
didn't jade you and harden your heart is a fucking marriage.
I agree. I'm really it's you know, I've had some
incredibly unlucky things happened to me, but I'm a really
lucky person because you're so right. I could have ended
(27:57):
up just bitter. I could have ended up bitter, not
ever trusting anybody, never opening my heart again to someone.
And that hasn't happened, and it has come from hard work. Yeah.
I was going to say, why do you think you
didn't become bitter? You know, I went through phases where
I was, but I think that I started, you know,
(28:18):
I started doing I see it's energy work or consciousness
work in part because even though I've done it for
over fifteen years, I still don't know how to really
talk about it in the right way. But it's really
been this energy, consciousness, spiritual work that heals and evolved
my soul right, And so I think that because of that,
(28:42):
and because of my friends and my family, I was
able to hold on to that core self, and that
core self was eventually felt safe enough to sort of
start to blossom again. Do you think that you've grieved
sufficiently the loss of privacy? No? No, I I you've
(29:06):
gotten some of your privacy back. Yeah, I have. I
have where it's definitely and it's also shifted, you know.
So I mean I say it jokingly, but there's truth
to it that. It's like people don't say to me,
no offense, do you know who you look like? Anymore?
Like they'll say, oh, your Ted talk helped me, or
you know, your anti bullying campaign on this help my kids.
(29:29):
They start with no offense. Yeah, oh for years, like
no offense, but do you know who you look like?
And it's like, yes, yes I do. I've gotten you know,
I thought you were really gonna suck, but you're You're like, Okay,
you're good. When they've seen me on stage and it's like, oh, well,
thank you for setting the bar solo exactly easily, you know,
(29:53):
jump over bred um. Yeah. So this show is called
now What. And aside from the most infamous now what
year are two or fifteen? What in your life? Can
you sort of pinpoint as another powerful now what moment
(30:15):
in your life? I think there were two that were
very close together for me, and one was my Vanity
Fair essay being published in twenty fourteen and sort of
having this opportunity of writing a first person essay instead
of being interviewed that coming out, having the conversations that
(30:37):
were happening between the generations, and it was really this
younger generation that kind of forced me to re evaluate,
or not forced me, but I think forced others to reevaluate,
to reevaluate the situation. That was sort of a jumping
in having no idea where I was going to land moment.
(31:00):
And then second close to that, I think was the
moment at the end of my TED talk when people
responded positively to the talk. When I was in the room,
people were shaking their heads, they were agreeing with you,
They gave you a standing ovation. It was it was hard.
(31:22):
Chris Anderson sort of sweetly kind of made me take
the moment, in which I very much appreciate now, because
I just kind of wanted to run off stage, and
you know, three quarters of the way through, in my head,
I was like, oh my god, this is so boring.
Everybody's bored. I better hurry up and finish, and oh god.
So but I think from there that those were and
(31:46):
those only came because I took risks. I think public opinion,
you know, really sort of shifted and people are looking
back at ninety eight with a very different lens, and
so much of our history really does shape us. But
I really firmly believe that we are also more than
what we've been through. So who is Monica Lewinsky in
(32:06):
twenty twenty three very grateful? I'm just grateful person. I
love to laugh. I love making other people laugh. I
don't you know. I'm my happiest when I'm kind of
with the people that really get me, that I love.
And you know, I have a handful of friends that
(32:29):
the marker for me is usually around like can I
spend an entire day with you and not get annoyed?
You know, And so like the ones that I do like,
those are my people. I'm happier in a one on
one or a small dinner party than a big, you know,
a big thing. So I don't know, that's not I
don't I don't know how to say who I am now,
I don't know. I'm silly. That was the incredible Monica Lewinsky. Monica,
(32:57):
if you're listening, thank you so much for sharing your story.
The world needs to hear it from you, and I'm
so grateful for your time. If you have time, go
watch Monica's documentary Fifteen Minutes of Shame. It's streaming now
on HBO Max. And if you have extra time, head
on over to Apple Podcasts and please give now What
(33:17):
with Brookshields a rating and a review. These things really
help listeners discover us. Now What with Brookshields is a
production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is
Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and
abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show
(33:41):
is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are cutwrenching, but all are
unapologetically human and remind us that every success and every
setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice answers
one question, Now, what what did that? Strong? Wells, I'm
(00:51):
not getting off the swing, little girl dream for herself.
Oh gosh, let's see. Well when I I mean, it's
given my history, it is pretty funny that for a
little while, when I was very young, I had decided
that I wanted to grow up and be president. So well,
(01:13):
you know, okay, oh you know they got into the
Oval office. Yeah. I always say that, wrong way, wrong track.
My guest today doesn't need an introduction, but rather a reintroduction,
one that I feel is long overdue. Monica Lewinsky is
(01:34):
a producer, an activist, a public speaker and a contributing
editor to Vanity Fair. In the twenty five years since
her relationship with former President Bill Clinton made her both
a household name and patient zero for online harassment, she's
become an expert on the effects of cyberbullying, earning a
(01:55):
master's degree in social psychology from the London School of
Economics and Political Science. Her now viral ted talk on
the matter has racked up more than twenty one million views.
And that was just the beginning Monica's now what moment.
It's clear, but her resilience, her drive, and her refusal
(02:16):
to let the world make her bitter, that story has
yet to be told. I so admire her. She's one
of the bravest people I know, and I am honored
that she made a point to join me. So here
is Monica Lewinsky. First of all, Monica Lewinsky, I just
want to say hi, friend, and thank you so much
(02:37):
for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me Brook,
it's so sweet, And congratulations on the documentary. Thank you. Yes,
I think that you are going to really appreciate it
and identify with it in lots of different little ways.
But just to kind of you jump in a little
(03:00):
what are you working on right now? So for the
last several years I have been focusing on and trying
to build a career in producing god producing television. I
saw the documentary fifteen Minutes of Shame. I thought it
was beautifully done. Oh thank you. Yeah. Max Joseph who
was the director, did a really fantastic job and the
(03:23):
whole team. We did it during the pandemic, which in
a way was a blessing to have work. You know,
it's something to focus on, but was certainly challenging to
film a documentary. Well yeah, to have access to the
to what you need to put in the documentary, right.
But you know what I thought was what really stuck
out for me is, you know, people think that your
(03:47):
experiences were just so one of a kind and sort
of isolated, and what you've done with a documentary is
really bring to light the power of public shame and
the vitriol and how it happens all the time, cyberbullying,
(04:08):
the press, all of the time, all around us. In
the incidences were for these different people in your story
included are so varied, and that's something that I guess
I never really thought about it that way. Well, I
think that it's you know, I mean I've seen certainly
in the last twenty five years. I can't believe it's
(04:30):
been that long, but in the twenty five years, since
nineteen ninety eight, I have seen this sort of online
world virgin in myriad ways. Right, So there was we
started to have different kinds of aol chat and then
my Space and blogging, and eventually, you know, we got
to this sort of explosion of social media. And I
(04:51):
think that with social media so many people having voices
really changed our cultural landscape that way. And you know,
I'm not the only person who's seen this. I mean,
I think many people have commented that we've just started
to see this kind of behavior that used to only
be lobbed at at public figures now start to be
(05:13):
lobbed at private people as well. And with fifteen minutes
of shame, I think what we really wanted to do.
I mean, it's only ninety minutes. So it really was
kind of this introductory examination of asking these questions of
like how did we you know, how did we get
to where we are today with public shaming and where
the fuck are we going? I mean, and you talk
(05:35):
about it public shaming has been part of the world
and an existence at the beginning of humanity, exactly exactly.
And I you know, something that we discovered while we
were working on the film that was really fascinating to
me was kind of this turning point that happened around
from public shaming having been kind of a social tool
(05:57):
in communities, and then when the printing press came along,
it now all of a sudden went out of the
public square sort of person to person or gossip, and
it's now on the printed page, and it now started
to become a commodity. You know. Throw Rupert Murdoch in there,
and the tabloid culture, and you really start to see
(06:19):
the roots of how we got to where we are
today and how indelible it is and how forever it is.
Yeah it is, And I think, you know, it's like, um,
I sometimes use this analogy that I think about, you know,
we all we all rubber neck when we see a
car accident on the freeway, you know, but how many
of us? Certainly not me? But you know, does anybody
(06:42):
ever five minutes or five hours or five days think, oh,
I wonder how that person is? We don't you know?
It sort of comes in. We were we're going to
see blood, you know, yeah, exactly. Well, it really resonated
with me because when I was a kid, I was
tabloid fodder, I mean all the time, and it was
(07:02):
about my sexuality, and it was about and I was
portrayed a certain way, and everybody had an opinion. It
wasn't on social media. I don't. I don't think I
would have survived if the social media had existed. My
mother kept it all from me, and I didn't read
all of it until much much later, because I just
found all the boxes. And I do identify with you
(07:24):
in that way. And you hit on the idea. In
your documentary fifteen Minutes of Shame. You open with this line.
Imagine waking up one morning with the whole world suddenly
knowing your name and talking about you. Not because you
cured a disease or saved your neighbor's house from burning down.
Everyone knows who you are, because your secret, your mistake
(07:46):
has now been made public. That is so vulnerable and honest,
and I just have such empty for you, and I'm
just so sorry that it that it had to happen
that way for you. Well, I mean, you were just
(08:06):
talking about your experiences, and you were even younger, much
younger than I was. I mean, it was that the
technology was different in the world. And it also I'm
sure a lot of the attention you were getting was positive.
I know there might have you were mentioning some of
the negative. So there was that difference. I don't think
I had a positive No one liked me. But I mean,
(08:29):
you admitted you made a mistake or you said you
did right, but then the level of abuse that was
thrown at you, it's unfathomable. It wasn't I think too,
what you know. One aspect that became very interesting to me,
and I think we tried to thread into the doc
in the personal stories, was that these kinds of incidents
(08:52):
aren't just what happens in the moment. The trauma and
the shame lives with you for such a long time,
and in my instance, and actually in sort of all
of these the public shamings that happen online, no matter
the degree it impacts your life, you know, And I didn't.
I didn't actually see the full effect until probably two thousand,
(09:17):
let's see two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight,
when I had gone to graduate school. I tried to,
you know, sort of build this new scaffolding of who
I was as a person coming into adulthood. And I
couldn't get a job. And that was when I realized like, oh,
(09:38):
this is still here, and this is has imprinted on
my life in a way. And that's actually when I
came into some anger. It took me that long to
come into any anger too. I mean I think that
there's it's like dealing with death or you know, the
five stages of grief. And but you talk so eloquently
(10:00):
about shame and shame coming off in layers. Can you
talk a little bit about that to me, tell me
how you do it? Yes. Let me credit my therapist,
who's a trauma psychiatrist. So, I mean, she's really really
helped me to see in different times of times that
(10:20):
I've come into sessions and gone, well, I think I'm
depressed again, you know, And when we unpack that and
really examine it, it's usually grief, and that grief is
usually connected to some part of a loss for me
that usually tacks back to ninety eight in some way,
(10:41):
you know, And so I think that there, I think
what happens is is it's this like it's this this
is like such a bad metaphor, but it's sort of
like peeling an onion, except if you imagine that in
between the layers that you're peeling, you're healing and your chaining.
So it's with more awareness, you know, it's with growth
(11:04):
and more awareness that I think you kind of come
to that next stage almost like in a video game.
You know, you've like passed that layer and now, oh,
here's this other grief or shame aspect that you're looking at.
Do you find forgiveness for yourself in doing that? I
(11:27):
try really hard. I need a lot of reminders for that,
I think, like I try to work on it from
many different angles, you know. So one thing I started
doing a couple of years ago is here I can
show you what. I have photos of me as a
kid all over my health, like different photos, and I've
(11:51):
sort of put them there to remind myself to like
send love to that in her child, that little girl,
remind her she's safe today. So that's one way I
do it. Another is, you know, a mantra my therapist
gave me of like, rather than beat myself up trying
to just like yeah, that's what I do sometimes when
(12:12):
I get anxious. Sometimes when I'm scared, I blah blah
blah blah blah, whatever the thing is that I don't
want to be doing. We're talking about the concept of shame,
and one thing that really strikes me about our conversation,
which I've also heard you speak about before, is that,
(12:37):
for you, and for many young women, myself being one
of them, your sense of shaming yourself started at a
really young age. Oh yeah, a thousand percent. I mean
I think that it was you know, I think that
there there aspects like another I'm just trying to think
of how to phrase this because it sort of mirrors
(12:57):
what we were just talking about with the layers of
shame in a way, is that there's also layers of
awareness that comes. So for me, it wasn't until my
life started changing in twenty fourteen and people started to
see me for more of my true self. I was
able to earn an income and support myself in my forties.
(13:20):
As that started to happen, I was able to kind
of say certain other issues that had always been lurking of,
you know, trauma, different traumas from before ninety eight, you know,
from my younger years in high school. I also was
raised in La so being a little chubby Jewish girl
(13:41):
was like, I mean, not the Jewish part, but the
you know, sort of the didn't fit in here, you know. So,
I mean I remember I went on my first diet,
I think when I was maybe eleven, maybe you know,
and I just you know, and now now I think
it's I'm sure you've experienced it too, because you also,
(14:04):
you know, you've always been looked at for your beauty
and which you have both inside and out. Anybody who
spends five minutes with you knows that, ah, we're in
the club, we'll get jackets. So but so now you're
eleven years old, do you do that? Do you do this?
(14:24):
Self imposed? Again? What were you like as a little girl, Like, yes,
that was it was self imposed. But I think it's
probably what I absorbed, um from the culture, what I
absorbed from school, I you know, but as a kid,
I mean, like my mom always says that she just
(14:45):
I was very strong willed and that I knew like,
I mean, both of my parents sort of still tease
me that, you know. One of the first sentences I
ever said before I was two was like, hands on
my hips, you are not the boss of me, you know,
so um, and I think that's that's that's still with me.
But um my, you know, my mom will joke and say,
(15:06):
I think she feels like she was just never strong
enough to be the parent to discipline me or to
you know, to shape the kind of strong, strong willed
kid that I was. What did that that strong willed
I'm not getting off the swing, little girl um dream
for herself. Oh gosh, um let's see. Well when I mean,
(15:29):
I mean, it's it's given my history. It is pretty
funny that for a little while when I was very young,
I m had decided that I wanted to grow up
and be president. So that's you know, okay, well you
got there. You know, you can always say that it's
(15:50):
like wrong way, wrong track, Uh, definitely not the right way.
And I went through different um stages of I think
it was always caring about people. My dad is a
doctor and my mom was a social worker for a while,
and so I sort of grew up in this helping environment. Um.
(16:10):
That was just kind of an undercurrent in my family
of like, you help people. Um, And so I think
that there that that was always interesting to me and
so it wasn't it wasn't really a surprise when ultimately
I was interested in psychology also because I was fucked
up so well you talked about I mean trauma. My god,
(16:31):
you definitely went through a drauma. So did you did
you think you wanted to be a therapist or initially
actually so from high school. I did a lot of
costume design in high school, and so I actually was
looking into that as a career. But I think my
parents sort of, you know, like many parents wanted, you know, okay,
(16:55):
choose choose a major. That's sort of something where you
could go get a job tomorrow if you had to.
But with psychology, I didn't feel I'd be able to
learn the skills to leave work at home, and so
I wasn't interested in becoming a therapist. I was very
interested in forensic psychology. So I was fascinated by that
(17:16):
intersection of law and psychology in everything from jury selection
to you know, the mind of a criminal. Like my
dream job was sort of working at the FBI. So
again and again, my alliance, like the Monica the story,
you know, one bad path after the other, one crooked path,
you know, or but what do you think you were
(17:38):
trying to figure out about yourself in that those twenties,
you know, looking for I think that professionally I was.
I was really interested and I've always been interested in
kind of solving puzzles and problems. You know, understanding the
cause of something is really interesting to me. And the
(17:59):
idea that when you unlock that key and understand something,
you can change behavior individually collectively. Personally, I think I
was I was looking for validation. I think I felt
like I was this very kind of split person, you know,
(18:21):
one who was young and naive and who was looking
for adoration and validation that I was lovable. And I
think then there was this other part of me that was,
you know, exploring who who Who was I? And that
was a lot of when I moved to Portland, Oregon,
of like you try on different identities. You know, nowadays
(18:44):
people kids do that as a teenager on social media,
but for me that happened, you know, in my late
teens in early twenties. Well, and then you get validation
from the most important person in the world practically, and
that's can I say, I don't know if I'm going
(19:05):
to get in trouble for this, but I get it.
I get that. I mean, in reading the Andrew Morton
book that you did collaborate with, I was struck by
sort of the empathy and the understanding sexuality. Wise, there's
a quote and you say, I don't see sexuality as
(19:27):
being something to hide away in the dark or be
ashamed of. I think our sexuality is something to be honored,
cherished and valued. That is such a fascinating piece of you.
How do you think those two things happened in your psyche?
Was it? Do you think a reaction to the shame
that you had about your weight and the struggle was
(19:50):
a defiance Those two things coexisting really is fascinating to me. Yeah,
it's I mean it's interesting to me too. Where it
also takes on a whole other layer, is I um,
I had had an experience when I was fourteen that
(20:12):
I didn't even recognize as being an unwanted sexual experience
until I was in my forties. So I look back
on a lot of my behavior and it's here. There
are probably other things that happened when I was even
younger than that that someone led to that situation, and
so I think that there was a lot of dissociation
(20:35):
for me you know a lot, and I know there
are a lot of young women who go through and
men who go through that too, and so it's it's interesting.
It's not that I feel differently than that quote now,
but I think I was twenty five years old, I
had I had been trying to that part of me
that was trying to figure out who was I. An
(20:56):
aspect of my social identity to myself was I'm comfortable
with my sexuality and it's a good thing, and this
is what young women should do. And the truth is
is like underneath all of that, because I see it
now and also impacted by what happened in ninety eight,
it's like the intimacy issues, you know, the real sort
(21:18):
of the very bearing of your soul and and being
physically and sexually intimate with someone and emotionally intimate, you know,
the difficulties that can happen there, and well, unavailable people
in some aspects too. There's something in that and it's
not and I'm sure you know it's not just a
(21:39):
wedding ring that makes someone unavailable. I mean there's the
you know, we could probably have a whole museum exhibit
of different kinds of unavailability and you know. I mean,
I'll be I'm forty nine, I'll be turning fifty in July.
And this last year has been so much about acceptance
for me, of just sort of recognizing, okay, where am
(22:01):
I and and accepting that. And I you know, there's
there's a part of me that looks at some of
my relationship history and it has just gotten to a
point where I'm like, I don't, I don't know. Maybe
maybe I can't do that. Maybe I have this really
deep I mean, I'm so lucky I have. I have
incredible friends. I have really deep emotional intimacy with these people.
(22:23):
There's there's not a barrier there, and yet I think,
I don't know, I seem to don't cry, lift off,
don't don't don't say it's not but also great. But
it's just I think that there's also it doesn't mean
I can't have connection, it doesn't mean I won't evolve,
it's you know, where things may not shift. You know
(22:45):
that I'm hearing a lot of people who are trying
MDMA therapy and having a lot of success, and especially
with PTSD, so you know, who knows. But I'm not
trying to It's not like a Saba or you know,
violin playing moment of like, oh I I've you know,
retired from romance or anything. I think it's just about
(23:08):
coming into your own being okay with with where things are.
It doesn't mean you become complacent, but you just you're okay.
You didn't just become okay. You know, I want to
I want to really applaud you for all of the
work and the time and the willingness to confront and talk.
And you know you didn't just push things up, shove
(23:31):
stuff under the carpet. And you know you've you've had
there's been a lot of abusiveness towards you and towards
that little girl, and well, I talk a lot about
this about a reclaiming of yourself and I didn't start
that until my fifties. And I'm happy for you for
(23:55):
this next phase because I think it's a blooming. It's
a it's a different type of a blossoming. But you've
done the hard work to get there. I have I'm
going to I will accept that. So thank you. It
is it's I was actually just saying yesterday to someone
(24:16):
who has for positive reasons but kind of come into
a lot of attention in a fast way, somewhat unexpectedly,
and I was saying, how in order to do in
twenty twenty one, when Impeachment was coming out and a
month later fifteen Minutes of Shame was launching, and I
(24:38):
was needing to do a lot of things that are
very uncomfortable for me. The amount of support that I
had to build for myself is crazy, you know. I
mean it's the regular therapist, the somatic therapist, the energy work,
the friend of his, this other energy work, the crystals,
the the you know, the person I work with practice
(25:00):
seeing and hearing questions that could upset me so that
I'm able to show up because it's really scary for
me to show up publicly that way. What's interesting is
you did so many interviews, yeah, back in the day,
(25:21):
and you were so open and so I'm so curious
too in looking back at them. What do you think
about them? What is your opinion of the Barbara Walters interview?
Because I have an opinion about my Barbara Walters interview. Yeah,
it's um. You know. I Barbara and I had a
friendship that you know, went on until she passed recently.
(25:44):
Although I think like a number of people. I heard
from her less and less the last couple of years,
but from that whole period. I mean, those those kinds
of interviews are complicated to look at now because where
they're fascinating when you're not the person who's the subject,
is to see, oh, this is a reflection of where
we were in the culture. It was okay to say this,
(26:05):
It was okay to ask that of a young person,
and I for me and maybe this is you know,
not that there's a right answer, but that whole period
of I just look back on it, and what feels
sad to me was I had this very naive view
(26:26):
at the time that if people just got to know me,
they would go, oh, oh okay, you're not all these
awful things that we thought. And I truly thought that
after I sat down and did this, you know, big
interview with Barbara and had had participated in the book
with Andrew. I mean that was more also to help
pay legal fees and things that I thought, oh, okay,
(26:48):
then people will they'll get it, they'll understand, people will
like me. And I was so wrong. I was so wrong.
I mean, it took over fifteen years for people to
be in a place the world to be in a place,
new generations, for people to be willing to sort of
ratch the surface of my true self. But you're you're
(27:11):
preyed upon, and you're I mean, the betrayal is what
I'm I mean from Linda Trip's betrayal, the non admission
of relationship, with Bill's betrayal, the people who knew me,
you know, they were a handful of people who who
who knew me, who were in that who still made
(27:34):
the choices they made. You know, um, and that it
didn't jade you and harden your heart is a fucking marriage.
I agree. I'm really it's you know, I've had some
incredibly unlucky things happened to me, but I'm a really
lucky person because you're so right. I could have ended
(27:57):
up just bitter. I could have ended up bitter, not
ever trusting anybody, never opening my heart again to someone.
And that hasn't happened, and it has come from hard work. Yeah.
I was going to say, why do you think you
didn't become bitter? You know, I went through phases where
I was, but I think that I started, you know,
(28:18):
I started doing I see it's energy work or consciousness
work in part because even though I've done it for
over fifteen years, I still don't know how to really
talk about it in the right way. But it's really
been this energy, consciousness, spiritual work that heals and evolved
my soul right, And so I think that because of that,
(28:42):
and because of my friends and my family, I was
able to hold on to that core self, and that
core self was eventually felt safe enough to sort of
start to blossom again. Do you think that you've grieved
sufficiently the loss of privacy? No? No, I I you've
(29:06):
gotten some of your privacy back. Yeah, I have. I
have where it's definitely and it's also shifted, you know.
So I mean I say it jokingly, but there's truth
to it that. It's like people don't say to me,
no offense, do you know who you look like? Anymore?
Like they'll say, oh, your Ted talk helped me, or
you know, your anti bullying campaign on this help my kids.
(29:29):
They start with no offense. Yeah, oh for years, like
no offense, but do you know who you look like?
And it's like, yes, yes I do. I've gotten you know,
I thought you were really gonna suck, but you're You're like, Okay,
you're good. When they've seen me on stage and it's like, oh, well,
thank you for setting the bar solo exactly easily, you know,
(29:53):
jump over bred um. Yeah. So this show is called
now What. And aside from the most infamous now what
year are two or fifteen? What in your life? Can
you sort of pinpoint as another powerful now what moment
(30:15):
in your life? I think there were two that were
very close together for me, and one was my Vanity
Fair essay being published in twenty fourteen and sort of
having this opportunity of writing a first person essay instead
of being interviewed that coming out, having the conversations that
(30:37):
were happening between the generations, and it was really this
younger generation that kind of forced me to re evaluate,
or not forced me, but I think forced others to reevaluate,
to reevaluate the situation. That was sort of a jumping
in having no idea where I was going to land moment.
(31:00):
And then second close to that, I think was the
moment at the end of my TED talk when people
responded positively to the talk. When I was in the room,
people were shaking their heads, they were agreeing with you,
They gave you a standing ovation. It was it was hard.
(31:22):
Chris Anderson sort of sweetly kind of made me take
the moment, in which I very much appreciate now, because
I just kind of wanted to run off stage, and
you know, three quarters of the way through, in my head,
I was like, oh my god, this is so boring.
Everybody's bored. I better hurry up and finish, and oh god.
So but I think from there that those were and
(31:46):
those only came because I took risks. I think public opinion,
you know, really sort of shifted and people are looking
back at ninety eight with a very different lens, and
so much of our history really does shape us. But
I really firmly believe that we are also more than
what we've been through. So who is Monica Lewinsky in
(32:06):
twenty twenty three very grateful? I'm just grateful person. I
love to laugh. I love making other people laugh. I
don't you know. I'm my happiest when I'm kind of
with the people that really get me, that I love.
And you know, I have a handful of friends that
(32:29):
the marker for me is usually around like can I
spend an entire day with you and not get annoyed?
You know, And so like the ones that I do like,
those are my people. I'm happier in a one on
one or a small dinner party than a big, you know,
a big thing. So I don't know, that's not I
don't I don't know how to say who I am now,
I don't know. I'm silly. That was the incredible Monica Lewinsky. Monica,
(32:57):
if you're listening, thank you so much for sharing your story.
The world needs to hear it from you, and I'm
so grateful for your time. If you have time, go
watch Monica's documentary Fifteen Minutes of Shame. It's streaming now
on HBO Max. And if you have extra time, head
on over to Apple Podcasts and please give now What
(33:17):
with Brookshields a rating and a review. These things really
help listeners discover us. Now What with Brookshields is a
production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is
Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing by Darby Masters and
abou Zafar. Our executive producer is Christina Everett. The show
(33:41):
is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!