--- title: Monica Lewinksy Opens Up in First Interview in a Decade description: Monica Lewinksy gave her first television interview after more than a decade of hiding from the public eye. canonical: https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-01T17:26:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:35.249Z og:title: Monica Lewinksy Opens Up in First Interview in a Decade og:description: "I was a virgin to humiliation" og:url: https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Monica Lewinksy Opens Up in First Interview in a Decade twitter:description: "I was a virgin to humiliation" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Monica Lewinsky: Starr Report Aftermath Was 'Violation After Violation' by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jul 1, 2014 5:26 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jul 1, 2014 5:26 PM UTC Visit NBCNews.com for [breaking news](http://www.nbcnews.com), [world news](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3032507), and [news about the economy](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3032072) After more than a decade of mostly hiding from the public eye, Monica Lewinksy has decided it’s time to “time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress” and start telling her side of a story that dominated headlines for months in the late 1990s. In her first television interview since 2003, Lewinsky opened up about what it was like living in the wake of the Starr Report, which investigated a series of scandals involving the Clinton White House — including allegations that President Bill Clinton had oral sex with Lewinsky while she was a White House intern. “I was a virgin to humiliation of that level, until that day,” she said in an upcoming National Geographic documentary called _The 90s: The Last Great Decade_. “To have my narrative ripped from me, and turned into the Starr report, and things that were turned over or things they delved out of my computer that I thought were deleted. I mean it was just violation after violation.” A _Today Show_ segment featuring a sneak peek of her interview showed Lewinsky discussing the sexism she faced as well. “To be called stupid, and a slut, and a bimbo, and ditzy, and to be taken out of context, it was excruciating,” she said. The interview follows the publication of an impassioned essay Lewinsky wrote for [_Vanity Fair_ in May](http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/06/monica-lewinsky-humiliation-culture) that discussed what it was like to survive in a culture of humiliation. _The 90s: The Last Great Decade_ premieres Sunday, July 6 at 9 p.m. ET on the National Geographic Channel. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/"},"headline":"Monica Lewinsky: Starr Report Aftermath Was 'Violation After Violation'","datePublished":"2014-07-01T17:26:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:35.249Z","description":"\"I was a virgin to humiliation\"","url":"https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/","keywords":["Living","Media","relationships","Monica Lewinsky","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2946164/monica-lewinsky-interview/","name":"Monica Lewinsky: Starr Report Aftermath Was 'Violation After Violation'"}}]}] ```