Monica Lewinsky

Monica Lewinsky
Lewinsky at the 2014 IDA Awards
Born	Monica Samille Lewinsky (1973-07-23) July 23, 1973 (age 43) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education	Lewis & Clark College (BA, 1995) London School of Economics (MSc, 2006)
Occupation	anti-bullying activist fashion designer television personality Government assistant
Years active	1995–2005; 2014–present
Employer	White House Office of Legislative Affairs (1995–96) The Pentagon (1996–97)
Known for	Lewinsky scandal
Parent(s)	Bernard Lewinsky Marcia Lewis

Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist, television personality, fashion designer, and former White House intern with whom President Bill Clinton admitted to having had what he called an "inappropriate relationship" while she worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996. The affair and its repercussions, which included Clinton's impeachment, became known as the Lewinsky scandal.

As a result of the scandal, Lewinsky gained worldwide celebrity status; she subsequently engaged in a variety of ventures that included designing a line of handbags under her name, being an advertising spokesperson for a diet plan, working as a television personality, and then leaving the public spotlight to pursue a master's degree in psychology in London. She was also publicly ridiculed on the Internet regarding the scandal, and in 2014 returned to public view as a social activist, discussing the scandal's effects and speaking out against cyberbullying.

Monica Samille Lewinsky was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in an affluent family in southern California in the Westside Brentwood area of Los Angeles and in Beverly Hills. Her father is Bernard Lewinsky, an oncologist, who is the son of German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany and immigrated to El Salvador and then moved to the United States when he was 14. Her mother, born Marcia Kay Vilensky, is an author who uses the name Marcia Lewis. In 1996, she wrote her only book, the gossip biography, The Private Lives of the Three Tenors. During the Lewinsky scandal, the press compared Lewis' unproven "hints" that she had an affair with opera star Plácido Domingo to her daughter's sexual relationship with Clinton. Monica's maternal grandfather, Samuel M. Vilensky, was a Lithuanian Jew, and Monica's maternal grandmother, Bronia Poleshuk, was born in the British Concession of Tianjin, China, to a Russian Jewish family. Monica's parents' acrimonious separation and divorce during 1987 and 1988 had a significant effect on her. Her father later married his current wife, Barbara; her mother later married R. Peter Straus, a media executive and former director of the Voice of America under President Jimmy Carter.