Monica Lewinsky Fights Against Online Harassment

Published on October 20, 2014.

Roger Wong/INFGoff.com

Monica Lewinsky, the woman who was in the center of probably America’s biggest cheating scandal is now talking about her experience to try to help others.

Lewinsky, now 41, was 22-years old and interning at the White House when she became involved with the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, a married man.

Forbes hosted a 30 under 30 Summit in Philadelphia, PA on Monday October, 20, marking Monica’s first-ever public address.

She began by telling her now infamous story, “I fell in love with my boss. In a 22-year-old sort of way, it happens. But my boss was the president of the United States. That probably happens less often,” she stated.

Lewinsky first opened up about her experience after a long time of silence in an essay she wrote for an issue of Vanity Fair in May of 2014 in order to battle a culture of online harassment and humiliation that is much to prevalent in today’s society.

“Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure, to a publicly humiliated one. I was patient zero- the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet,” she recalled of her situation.

She decided to break her silence after the death of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi who committed suicide in 2010 after a video of him kissing another man went viral and his classmates continuously humiliated him online.

Today after her impassioned speech and vocalization of a huge cultural problem she also joined the world of Twitter, “I want to put my suffering to good use and give purpose to my past,” she said.