Monica Lewinsky stopped by The Late Show to chat about her new podcast, Reclaiming, and took the opportunity to reflect on her life since her scandal with Bill Clinton in the late ’90s.
Host Stephen Colbert asked Lewinsky how her life has changed since she started telling her own story a decade ago. “For starters, I would say that people have thankfully stopped coming up to me and saying, ‘No offense, do you know who you look like?’” Lewinsky replied. “That was a good starter.”
She continued, “I think I feel like I have more purpose now. I tried so hard to move forward from ’98 in so many different ways and it just didn’t seem to stick.” She said that the #MeToo movement gave her a lot of hope because she saw women coming together for other women. She added that she appreciates “these shifts in the culture that have really helped so many people.”
Lewinsky launched Reclaiming earlier this week and used the first episode to share her journey from scrutinized White House intern to the anti-bullying advocate she is now. She spoke to Colbert about the subject of bullying, noting that the positive thing is that “we now have a vernacular for things like bullying, slut-shaming, fat-shaming.”
“We didn’t have names for that before,” she said. “And I think with social media we’ve been able to get out the message more to people who are being bullied or cyber-bullied.”
Colbert mentioned that Lewinsky has so far had several great guests on the podcast, including Olivia Munn and Alan Cumming. “Do you have a white whale?” he asked about her potential dream guest.
“There’s so many,” she replied. “I have a very long list. I think if I aim really high I would say Taylor Swift. Particularly for the podcast because if you think about Taylor’s Versions it’s really a reclamation. To lose your music catalogue and to figure out a way to get that back as your voice.”
Lewinsky spoke to Rolling Stone recently about Reclaiming and her journey to the podcast. “For this podcast to be all it can be, I have to be more open,” she explained. “The part of me that makes a joke on Twitter or can write an article, it’s hiding still a little bit. The podcast is me reclaiming, as much as the stories of people I’m talking to.”
She added of the podcast’s origin, “The idea of reclaiming was something I had put in my Notes app not long after Michelle Obama had written Becoming and had kind of started that trend of ‘Oh, everybody has a book with one word and an -ing.’ And I’m like, ‘Mine will be Reclaiming. Each chapter could be different aspects of myself I’ve reclaimed.’ When I started to revisit it, it became more interesting as an idea to explore with other people, and other people’s stories, rather than it just being about me. I think down the line, there’ll be things that I reclaim on the podcast and process personally. So, that’s the idea there. I’m terrified.”
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