Bill Clinton talks Monica Lewinsky affair fallout and controversy over apology: “I meant it then”

Former President Bill Clinton is ready to share his thoughts about his 1998 affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in his new memoir “Citizen.”

At the center of one biggest political scandals, Clinton opened up about his “frustration” about being questioned about his affair and the emotional state during the firestorm that followed. The former president even acknowledged that he had never directly apologized to Lewinsky.

In his new book, “Citizen,” to be released on Nov. 19, Clinton ventures through his post-presidential years, including a 2018 NBC interview where Clinton was questioned about his apology to Lewinsky, the Guardian reports.

In the interview, journalist Craig Melvin asked Clinton about the #MeToo movement and then read Lewinsky’s column about the impact the #MeToo movement had on her perceptions of sexual harassment. Melvin asked Clinton if he felt any differently about the incident now.

In “Citizen,” Clinton wrote, “I said, ‘No, I felt terrible then.’ ‘Did you ever apologize to her?’ I said that I had apologized to her and everybody else I wronged. I was caught off guard by what came next. ‘But you didn’t apologize to her, at least according to folks that we’ve talked to.’ I fought to contain my frustration as I replied that while I’d never talked to her directly, I did say publicly on more than [one] occasion I was sorry.”

Clinton wrote in “Citizen” that the interview “was not my finest hour.” He explained he wasn’t prepared to be accused of not apologizing at all to Lewinsky. However, he did note that NBC later added a clip in the interview of Clinton addressing religious leaders in 1999 and apologizing to his family, Lewinsky and her family and the American people. “I meant it then and I mean it today,” he wrote.