Twenty years after the presidential scandal that rocked the second Clinton White House, Monica Lewinsky has resurfaced as a highly rational, hyper-intelligent feminist, who has come to terms with her faults and the very public way she was critiqued and sexualized in the late ’90s.
And she, maybe better than any woman, has her hand on the pulse of what makes powerful men tick—and well, in the case of a sitting president, lie.
For Vanity Fair, Lewinsky has penned a sort of manifesto on the modern-day vulnerable man, citing examples of public declarations by Prince Harry, Brad Pitt, and Jay-Z of their vulnerabilities. Prince Harry, of course, admitted to seeing a therapist after his mother’s death; while Pitt spoke of “[owning his] weaknesses and failures” in a GQ cover feature.
But maybe Lewinsky’s best example—and the one that hits closest to home? Jay-Z, who recently owned up to his infidelity on his 4:44 album—something that had been rumored since his wife, Beyoncé, released Lemonade. Lewinsky argues that the rapper could’ve swept everything under the rug and continued lying about it, but instead “chose a path of candor that will—like Brad’s and Prince Harry’s—move the conversation forward and help others.”
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