“This isn’t just going to go away. It’s called the Lewinsky Scandal.” It’s not surprising that Monica Lewinsky also has her own podcast. Because he is a public figure. But also because he has no choice but to monetize what happens to him. “When I was 24 years old, my story was stolen,” she said in the first episode of her podcast “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinksy.”
Today Americans are 52 years old and reclaiming authority to interpret their history. The story of a White House intern who fell in love with Bill Clinton in 1995. His colleague Linda Tripp recorded conversations about her love life with the president. When this affair was revealed, it not only led to the failure of Clinton’s impeachment trial. Lewinsky’s life also changed forever in an instant.
The story itself makes Lewinksy a good listener
What Lewinksy conveys in the first episode is not new, but it provides a touching change in perspective. This once ambitious young woman not only lost her anonymity. He only followed the official biography so he could pay court fees. He hated his voice, which he had to listen to for hours on tape. And questions like “Did I mention White House internship on my resume?” Most interns don’t have to deal with this.
“I want to pass out like a bag, I don’t want to exist anymore,” Lewinsky said in the podcast. But at some point he realized: “I can’t leave this behind, I have to integrate it into my life.” So she started writing for Vanity Fair and campaigning against bullying.
Earlier this year he launched his podcast which now has over forty episodes. Lewinsky spoke with her famous guests, including singer Miley Cyrus and activist Tarana Burke, about their trauma and blows of fate, but also about hope and resilience. And he did it well. The guests seemed comfortable and had fun chatting. Lewinksy carefully addresses sometimes overwhelming topics with her calm and positive demeanor. The story itself makes him a good listener.
Stay away from social ideas
Actor Alan Cumming, best known as the host of the musical “Cabaret,” spoke about his childhood with an abusive father. Even when he went to the hairdresser, he flinched because his father was always pulling his hair. With Lewinsky, he philosophized about when someone truly feels childhood trauma.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose bestselling book “Eat, Pray, Love” was made into a film starring Julia Roberts, spoke on a podcast about her decision to live alone and abstain. He said he was loneliest “when someone was in his bed.” Gilbert, who traveled the world in her mid-thirties without children or husband, must first free herself from social expectations and the dependency of relationships before she finds herself.
Lewinsky was not one to ask critical questions. In his conversation with Amanda Knox, he is shown to be an “Ally”, an ally. During a semester abroad in Perugia, Italy, Knox was initially convicted and later acquitted of the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher. The podcast episode with Knox, whose life story was recently turned into a series that also included Lewinsky, turned into a slightly unfortunate tour de force. Most of all, he regretted not being able to mourn his friend. A circumstance that has nothing to do with the murdered woman herself.
Critical distances and classifications appropriate to one topic or another are omitted in the podcast in favor of personal immediacy. But that was intentional. As Lewinksy himself says in the first episode: He had no influence on the fact that illegal recordings were made public at the time. With this podcast he regains his voice and also gives this opportunity to his guests.
