Monica Lewinsky – creating a life out of the ruins

Monica Lewinsky of the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal has rebranded herself in recent years as an activist against cyber-bullying. She describes herself as “patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale” has spoken out against the “public shaming epidemic”. Her 2015 Ted Talk, The Price of Shame, has been viewed 20 million times. She has now signed a production deal with 20th TV, working on the latest of the American Crime Story anthology series. ‘Impeachment’ set to premiere in early September will chronicle the events that led to the first impeachment of a sitting president in over a century with Clive Owen (as Bill Clinton), Edie Falco (as Hillary Clinton) and Sarah Paulson (as Linda Tripp).

  Although she was 23 when the liaison with Clinton started and she freely admits it was consensual it created a typically American furore which Europeans, especially the French viewed with astonishment. The Republicans exploited it in the hope of a political win though some now regret their actions of the time. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/547303-boehner-on-clinton-impeachment-i-regret-that-i-didnt-fight-against-it

   The one who suffered most was Lewinsky whose life was ruined for years after.

  She was born 23 July 1973 12.21 pm San Francisco and her parents divorced acrimoniously in her teens. She has an ambitious 10th house Leo Sun in an expansive opposition to Jupiter with her Jupiter in a confident trine to Pluto, so she’s no weakling though she will have father issues with a close bond from a 4th house Jupiter and her North Node in Capricorn.  

 She has a self-willed Mars in Aries opposition Uranus on her ascendant square Mercury in Cancer in her 10th which will be rebellious, unpredictable and highly-strung but also, when she gets it stabilised, makes her well- designed as an outspoken public communicator. Her Mars is also in an enthusiastic trine to Venus in showy Leo – overall she’s a strong character who knows what she wants and goes for it. Though even she sagged under the humiliation.

   When the scandal broke tr Neptune was opposition her Sun as was her Solar Arc North Node; Solar Arc Pluto was square her Mercury; her Solar Arc Neptune was opposition her Saturn; and tr Saturn was conjunct her Descendant square her Midheaven – a perfect storm of negatives.

  At the moment she’s building ahead for a new Saturn career cycle with tr Saturn moving through her Second Quadrant and heading upwards and onwards for two decades ahead. It won’t all be plain sailing with some challenging disagreements this year with tr Pluto opposing her Mercury; followed by glitches and setbacks in 2022 as her Solar Arc Midheaven squares her Neptune and her Progressed Mars is conjunct her Moon. But she has initiative and has overcome enough setbacks for several lifetimes so she’ll keep moving ahead.  

  On the Clinton connection – both she and himself are Sun Leos and both have an earthy, indulgent Taurus Moons and his Sun is conjunct her Venus, so there would be an attraction. Though his Saturn is conjunct her Sun indicative in part of the age difference but also a chilliness. His Mars Neptune is conjunct her 12th house Pluto suggesting a less favourable, subterranean and overloaded connection. When the scandal erupted his Pluto was conjunct her Solar Arc Midheaven bringing down her public reputation.  

  Their relationship chart has an adventurous, seemed-a-good-idea-at-the-time composite Sun Uranus trine Jupiter; with Jupiter in a frivolous square to Venus and a power-couple square to Pluto. But and it’s a major BUT there’s also a composite unkind, one-sided, sacrificial-victim Mars Saturn conjunction.  It was always going to end in tears one way or another.

49 thoughts on “Monica Lewinsky – creating a life out of the ruins

  1. Roderick, I would like to point out that Monica did apologise to Mrs Clinton. Personally given that His wife knew full well what her husband was like, I don’t know that his lying was all that noble. I gather that you consider Monica owning up to it as bragging.

    Either way my memory of it is skewed simply because of the length of time and the way it was reported in the press here in the UK. Also at the time I did not have that much interest in politics, except that this was akin to watching a soap opera.

  2. Roderick,
    I am willing to extend the olive branch, if you are. And let’s just say we agree to differ. And I do agree with you and Marjorie that Monica has not helped herself one bit. But if everyone realised that wars would never end and attitudes would never change and life would never get better in fact it just gets worse and worse. After all there have been people that have killed themselves, rather than take one more day of what I consider persecution.

    Though I appreciate that you probably don’t consider it that way. I am sorry that life hasn’t been kind. And I hope that some day it will get better. What might help is to not have such high expectations of people. Who knows you might find yourself liking someone despite their faults or even because of them. Carpe Deum! It means: Seize the day!

  3. Roderick, It is possible to disagree with someone without lobbing personal smears – over caffeined etc.
    Both acted badly. I’m not sure her getting involved in yet another rerun of the thing is that wise. She could have gone off afterwards, buried herself for a reasonable time in anonymity and then got a different life together that would have allowed this confected brouhaha to be pushed onto the margins. The impression is she’s allowed it to become the identifying feature of her life which is a skewed ego boost of sorts but ultimately damaging.
    We’ve all done monumentally stupid things. Handled in a different way she could have lived a different life.
    Look at Hugh Grant – the ultimate in sleazy encounters yet he took the very British route out of it – fulsome, upfront mea culpas and it faded.

    • Yes both of them acted badly but at least Bill had some shame by denying they had an affair while Monica wore it as some badge of honor.

      Monica had several times to deny the affair after Bill did, but she kept going because she was proud of sleeping with a married man.

      She even kept the blue dress stained —–. I mean did she sleep with the dress?

      I hope that Monica has gotten some therapy in the years since but she made a lot of bad choices and they were all calculated so I don’t feel sorry for her.

  4. I am not Delia or anyone other than myself. I don’t watch those news channels. I feel sorry for you . Did it ever occur to you that your reactions make you sound like a misogynist?

    If it makes you feel better casting Monica as the villain, I can’t stop you. But there are a lot of evil people in the world that have done far worse. If you have to hate someone, at least make it one of them. Not someone hitting 50 who has been trolled nearly her entire adult life. Now if you must go and have your last word. It doesn’t matter to me because I won’t be reading it.

    • Linda, I am the biggest feminist you will ever meet, but guess what–that means women need to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

      Yes, Monica will forever be a punchline because she thought it was cute to have an affair with the president and then tell Linda Tripp about it and keep that semen-stained blue dress as some sort of reminder of her conquest.

      Monica did something stupid when she was youngish but I have had to walk the straight and narrow and have suffered all of my life due to the actions of other people so I don’t feel sorry for someone like Monica who made her own bed and now has to live with the consequences.

  5. Roderick,

    I don’t drink coffee and life is too short to bother hating any politician. And as far as Bill Clinton is concerned, he wasn’t that bad a president. And maybe he was what America needed at that time.

    But if Clinton had actually given it some thought, he would have refused and had her moved out of temptation’s way, and then possibly have her sacked.

    But as we know he saw her as a perk of the job, and it is extremely unlikely that she was the first intern that was way too eager to please.

    Yes, Monica was too indiscreet and picked the wrong friend to tell. But don’t you think being hounded and trolled by the press and those willing to cast the first and every stone ad infinitum, is a bit over-the-top. And hypocritical, because there isn’t any one of us, that hasn’t at some point behaved badly, or said something that shouldn’t have been voiced. We don’t serve a life sentence for youthful indiscretions, but Monica has. Mass hate is never a good thing, and me advising you to let it go, was meant as friendly advice

  6. Maybe not over-indulgence, JAS, but extremes in living standards. In all countries the poor have no voice, but in Europe (I’m from New Zealand) I have always felt that gives a middle attitude)… there is more theatre to the American way (I’m richer than you)…in the US the divide is hugely visible between the haves/have nots, which is not always obvious in Europe – hard to express..same conditions but more low key (subversive?)

    • The overindulgence is apparent in portions they serve at some restaurants–huge banana splits for 5-year-olds. Bigger is better. Mayor Bloomberg was right. Extremes of materialism, flamboyance, etc. One way NZ is like the USA is that we’re the only 2 countries that allow pharmaceutical ads on TV. We have a brand of capitalism that continually gets us in trouble, makes us fall for scams– most recently an e-cigarette that would be used for people trying to quit smoking rather then getting kids addicted to nicotine.

  7. Roderick,

    25 years is way too long to punish someone. It is not like she murdered anyone. Afterall she hasn’t actually committed any crime. So why continue sniping as though she deserves to be punished for the rest of her life?

    If you are worried about the effect it had on Bill Clinton, then you shouldn’t be, because it made him more popular than ever. He went on to serve a second term. As for Monica, the statute of limitations on being judgemental , should have run out a long time ago. Whatever it is that is bothering you, just let it go!

    • Uh I don’t know why I am wasting my time responding to you but who exactly is punishing Monica and how is Monica being punished?

      The first time I heard those conversations between Monica and Linda Tripp it sounded as if they were reading a movie script. I always wondered if Monica recorded her interactions with Clinton, had them transcribed then pretended that her conversations with Tripp were spontaneous.

      Your entire post is inaccurate because the scandal with Monica didn’t come out until after Clinton was re-elected in 1996 and it was obvious to a blind man that it was a partisan hatchet job and that’s why Clinton’s popularity increased.

      Now go back to watching Fox News, OAN and Newsmax.

  8. Roderick, married men take vows and need to take them seriously and not hang young women out to dry OK? I have absolutely no respect for the Clintons

    • @ Delia, and Monica knew Bill was married but she targeted him like she had targeted several other married men before Bill.
      What are you talking about left Monica hanging out to dry?

      If Monica had kept her mouth shut no one would have known about their affair but she was bragging to her so-called friend about having given a sitting president a bj, but hey keep letting Monica off even though she had been a consenting adult in the situation.

  9. Clinton was the married man and capable of turning down an offer. It’s not like he was 14 years old. Remember it was him that tried to justify it as not being sex at all. And as for her bragging to a friend, so what! I doubt that Clinton was all that circumspect.

    Hanging Monica out to dry for all those years is vindictive and smacks of hypocrisy. By going down that route you are giving all married men that cheat a few out of jail card for free. But if you want to castigate a female of the species: why not Linda Trip or Hilary Clinton herself for continuously putting up with it. And we know that it wasn’t because she loved the guy. But for her own political aspirations to be a kingmaker!

    • @ Linda, you really need to lay off the caffeine and the Clinton hate.

      No one said that Bill was innocent, but guess what–if Monica had kept the affair to herself no one would have been the wiser.

      No one hung Monica out to dry. Monica suffered consequences of her own actions and because she was so focused on her ego and the fact that she was able to seduce the leader of the free world that she ignored the potential consequences of sharing that information with a so-called friend.

      I am not going to address the rest of your post because it is basically partisan drivel, but I glad that you were able to get that off your chest and I hope you were able to get a good night’s sleep.

      • I don’t recall any issue with getting natural gas for my home heating or petrol for my car here in the UK. Perhaps it was different for you larryc?

        Relative to what has followed with 9-11, Afghanistan/Iraq wars, GFC, austerity/QE, rising house prices/rents, Brexit and the current crop of nationalist/identity politics and rising PC-woke-cancel culture, the late 1990s were a quietly pleasant time.

  10. Aline, you’re right about the Puritanism. Ironically, the same tribe who hounded Lewinsky and Clinton for a consensual, if off-putting, sex act in the Oval Office conveniently thought it was fine for Trump to pay off a porn star and to “grab women by the p___y.” The wacky Evangelicals rationalized that “the devil was sent to do God’s work” in the Trump administration. Republicans, when I was growing up, were critical thinkers and good fiscal managers. Those days are long gone, sadly.

  11. It was ” puritan” ( and bl**dy hypocrite) america in all its splendour.. and as i might recall was not lewinsky ‘ s prosecutor also involved in an affair himself ??

        • Right, Maggy, and it is really Gingrich who institutionalized this problem of putting party ahead of country, something that continues with both parties today. Actually the Democrats desire to shut out Brett Kavanaugh was based on his role in the investigations of Clinton more than anything else. To Republicans, the way to get Clinton was to catch him in a lie.
          I don’t see what Europeans call American puritanism, but when Frank Lloyd Wright was blackballed from architectural commissions because of personal life in the early 1900s, American puritanism was strong. I see it more that we’re a country of extremism in every way: workaholics vs. hardcore partiers; very fat or very muscular vs. anorexic, violent or very passive, paleo vs vegan. There is a great deal of overindulgence in America, and the marketing, movie and advertising industries play into it. Difference between Europe and America was shown at Euro Disney, where Europeans would not spend money on their children the way that Americans typically do. (This overindulgence has little political, social or class divide.)

  12. Difficult to portray Monica as a victim after seeing her chart, although it all backfired on her. It looks like there were karmic influences at work. An American Democrat lady I met a few years ago talked at length about Bill’s charisma and how he was irresistible to women young and old. When he walked into a room, she said, all were totally smitten. He took what was freely offered.

    • Yes, Jane, you are right. I heard the same from a Republican woman who met Bill Clinton because her husband went to high school with Hilary. The Republicans feared that charisma which is why they attacked him on the sexual issues, not because of Puritanism. Clinton also was an extremely effective politician, the likes of which do not appear often.

      • The story that always sticks in my mind about Bill Clinton was from a Canadian journalist who lived next door to me in London. He said he wasn’t a Clinton fan until he heard him speak in the Canadian parliament on the federal issue. Clinton picked up the complexities of it and spoke extempore in what was a commendable performance.
        On the puritan issue the USA is odd. In movies/TV dramas there is endless violence, piles of bloody corpses and no one blinks an eye. But until recently everyone seemed to get into bed in their tracksuits and sex was all exceptionally prudish and coy. I’ve never quite worked out what it is astrologically but it’s definitely there.

        • In 1922, Hollywood had been rocked by the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and the murder of William Cunningham Deane-Tanner. The Hays Code came into effect in March 1930 and was headed by a Presbyterian elder, Will H Hays. The pre code of 1927 includes a list of ‘don’ts’ such as:

          Branding of people or animals;
          The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue;
          Rape or attempted rape;
          First-night scenes;
          Man and woman in bed together;
          Deliberate seduction of girls,
          Surgical operations;
          The use of drugs;
          Excessive or lustful kissing.

          Quite ironic when you remember that many of the above were standard behaviours in Hollywood.

        • Also home to one of the world’s largest pornography industries.

          But the amount of beeping of any swear words on TV, you’d think they were run by a theocracy.

        • Hi Marjorie

          Filmic Neptune arrived in prudish Virgo in the early thirties, censorship, modesty, “chaste” behaviour in the movies. That transit may also have had something to do with Prohibition and the ban on alcohol in the US – also ruled by Neptune, during that period.

    • Reminds me of this old joke: Women around America were surveyed to see if they would ever sleep with Bill Clinton; 97% of those surveyed responded: What? Again??!!! (hope it translates on paper).

      I once saw him in NY after he had left office. I did not ever, nor now, find him attractive. But I will say, surrounded by security and various fans as he was heading into a hotel, he stood head and shoulders above everyone else — really tall guy — and I could see that presence that people refer to, which he apparently had before his presidency.

      • Have seen him on TV in recent years he looks a shadow of his former self. Seems quite frail considering he’s not even 75.

        • Yes, agree. Saw him just last week on TV promoting a fictional thriller he’s co-written loosely based on his time in the WH and I was surprised to see him looking quite wilted.

          • Yes I saw him talking about that.

            Wondered what’s happening in his chart to take him into writing. Maybe the Uranus-Saturn transits to his Leo planets. He’s Saturn in Leo so may always have felt held back in the creative arena. (I wouldn’t be surprised if that Saturn-Pluto is part of some pathological drive to have sex to prove himself as not being inadequate)

            With that Libra ascendant and planets, not surprised to see it’s co-written. That seems to be a new trend in publishing.

          • Gnarly, he definitely strikes me as someone who would have liked to have been a Hollywood leading man but parental restrictions and expectations wouldn’t allow for him to go into something as flimsy as acting. There are quite a few politicians with that affliction unfortunately. Bet he would have been quite the performer ..ehem..

    • When the Clintons visited the Netherlands and visited the American school, I hear from teachers present that he was humane and natural, very casual….while Hil was obviously itching to Move On….

  13. As someone with an ascendant and nodal axis very close to hers, I was often told that I look like her. Monica read Gennifer Flowers’ book before she worked at the WH. She went after the White House internship for a specific reason–to seduce the president. A senior woman in the White House told her to stop dressing so provocatively. Monica hit Clinton at his weakest spot. When she was interviewed by Barbara Walters, it was all about getting sympathy for her — she said that her father felt so badly for her that the president of the country was doing such cruel things to her. Hopefully, she’s using her mistakes to become a better person.

    Although it was very clear to me at the time that the Republicans used this all for political gain — with Newt Gingrich the strongest Clinton attacker. Gingrich was also having an affair at the time — with a staffer, 23 years his junior. What you say, Marjorie, that people in Europe didn’t understand about why the big issue. I look at it this way: The American political game is almost always more about the battle, not about the substance of the dispute.
    Monica told Barbara Walters that she wanted marriage and children someday, but that life hasn’t come to her. She clearly wanted fame. Remember that none of this affair would have come to light unless she herself had talked about it.

    I don’t understand the people who put all the blame on Bill Clinton, and think Monica was some kind of victim of his, rather than her own karma. At nearly the same time, another young intern from California had an affair with her Congressman, and was then murdered, sadly. It seems like a tactic of using sex to get ahead was particularly popular in California in the ’90s, though not as respected in the rest of country.

  14. I’m surprised the French would be upset, given the mis-deeds of DSK and other politicians over there. Is that still the case today, I wonder.

      • I do remember wondering what all the fuss was about at the time. By then, the US knew quite a lot about JFK’s many liaisons too. The US has the biggest porn industry in the world, so hardly the innocent maiden! I hope Monica Lewinsky thrives, and proves that success is the best revenge. She has never deserved the way she was treated by the media and politicians.

      • Same in the Netherlands, politicians’ private lives are seldom commented on, people don’t really judge unless its something horrendous….

  15. Monica paid a very heavy price for what was really Clinton’s misdeeds. Because as we all know, she was one among many. And none of them paid the price that Monica paid, including Gennifer Flowers, his mistress when he was governor of Arkansas.

    • Linda: Monica paid a very heavy price for what was really Clinton’s misdeeds

      Seriously? Monica stated that the relationship was consensual and that she was the initial aggressor.
      Furthermore no one would have known if she hadn’t bragged about it to her ‘friend’ Linda Tripp.

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