Monica Lewinsky, 42, has said she contemplated suicide after her affair with Bill Clinton was made public. She was shamed when details of her fling with the US president were released to the world in 1998. She said:
“The public humiliation was excruciating. Life was almost unbearable. I felt like every layer of my skin and my identity were ripped off of me. It’s a skinning of sorts. You feel incredibly raw and frightened. I also feel like the shame sticks to you like tar. Overnight, I went from being a private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was branded a tramp, tart, bimbo and, of course, ‘that woman’. It was easy to forget ‘that woman’ was dimensional, had a soul and was once unbroken.”
Lewinsky admitted she doesn’t like to think about the past and said she now spends her time giving anti-bullying talks.