It was the affair that almost ended a presidency; now former President Bill Clinton is shining a light on why he had the relationship with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Bill Clinton sat down for an interview as part of the four-part documentary “Hillary” that is airing on Hulu.
The series looks at Hillary Clinton’s private life, as well as her political one, including her marriage and her unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2016.
Bill Clinton talked about why he had the affair with Lewinsky and whether he realized the risks at the time.
“Nobody sits down and thinks, 'I think I’ll take a really irresponsible risk,” Bill Clinton said according to the Times. “It’s bad for my family, bad for my country, bad for the people who work with me.”
He said the affair was a way of “managing my anxieties,” multiple media outlets, including CNN, reported.
“Everybody’s life has pressures and disappointments and terrors, fears of whatever, things I did to manage my anxieties for years,” Bill Clinton said.
Bill Clinton was impeached by the House for lying to a grand jury about the affair and obstructing justice. He was acquitted by the Senate, CNN reported.
Bill Clinton had denied the Lewinsky affair during a deposition in a lawsuit brought by Paula Jones, who said Bill Clinton sexually harassed her while he was governor.
He also tried to convince his wife that there was no affair.
Hillary Clinton recounted for the documentary that her husband warned her that a newspaper was going to publish a story about an alleged affair but he assured her there was no relationship, the Times reported.
“He was adamant and he was convincing to me,” Hillary Clinton said.
When her husband confessed, she sat next to him.
“I was just devastated. I could not believe it,” Hillary Clinton said.
She also made him tell their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, about the affair.
Bill Clinton said he has changed since then.
“I am a totally different person than I was. Maybe it is just getting older, but I hope it was also going through a lot of this,” Bill Clinton said, according to CNN.
“You know, we all bring our baggage to life and sometimes we do things we shouldn’t do. It was awful what I did,” Bill Clinton said in the interview, the Times reported.
The couple was interviewed separately for the documentary, CNN reported.
Cox Media Group
