It's time to speak, Lewinsky asserts

WASHINGTON -- Monica Lewinsky says that she became reclusive during Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for president in 2008 for fear that she would be used for political purposes, and that she feels "gun-shy" even now as Clinton considers another run in 2016.

Despite Lewinsky's trepidation, she writes in a forthcoming edition of Vanity Fair that she now feels compelled to emerge from the shadows because, "Should I put my life on hold for another eight to 10 years?"

It is time, she writes, to stop "tiptoeing around my past, and other people's futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past."

She continues: "What this will cost me, I will soon find out."

Lewinsky, now 40, broke her years-long silence about her affair with President Bill Clinton in the article to appear in the edition of Vanity Fair coming out Thursday.

In excerpts released by the magazine Tuesday -- which include a photograph of her wearing a white dress and lying casually on a sofa -- Lewinsky sounds off about her regrets, her feelings of humiliation and the effect that the scandal has had on her career.

She writes that she regrets her affair with Clinton, but says the popular view that the president pressured her into it is wrong.

"Sure, my boss took advantage of me," she writes, "but I will always remain firm on this point: It was a consensual relationship. Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position."

The full 4,300-word essay, taking up 6 1/2 pages in the magazine, will be released Thursday.

A Section on 05/07/2014

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