Monica Lewinsky - ‘I would have liked a more normal life’

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Sony Music

Society & Culture

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Monica Lewinsky is an activist, podcaster and producer. At the age of 24, Lewinsky, a White House intern, found herself in the eye of a global scandal. She was subjected to a mass public shaming - losing her livelihood, her anonymity and the future she had once imagined for herself. Now, 51 Lewinsky has garnered a new generation of admirers, who with the advent of social media and shifting cultural tides, have rightly reinterpreted the shocking way she was treated. Her podcast, which launched earlier this year, is called ‘Reclaiming’ and features interviews with guests who are in the process of reclaiming their own narratives, just as she was forced to do. She joins us to talk about her experiences with shame, her perfectionism and why the pain she went through has given her purpose. Elizabeth and Monica answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com All episodes in June are brought to you by @arlalactoFREE - all the taste, easier to digest. Listen to our bonus episode brought to by ArlaLactoFREE with Vicky Pattison here: https://link.chtbl.com/VickyPattison 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [howtofail] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/howtofail ⛵ Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Mix Engineer: Matias Torres Studio Engineer: Gulliver Tickell Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just dropping in with some great news that I hope will make your day about cheese. Well, dairy more
0:06.2	specifically. As you know, I'm someone who just loves her cheese. I cannot imagine life without it,
0:11.6	just as a mid-afternoon snack or a lump of delicious cheddar on a crumpet when I get home late.
0:16.7	But I'm fully aware that for some of us, eating lots of dairy, can cause a little discomfort
0:21.3	when digesting. Well, I have a solution. Arla lacto-free is a delicious range of dairy products
0:28.1	with all of the taste, none of the lactose. I'm all about food that meets my health needs,
0:33.6	but I also don't want to compromise on taste or joy. So this just feels like the best option.
0:39.3	Because a lacto-free has a delicious range of dairy products so you don't have to compromise on
0:44.7	taste. If you're craving dairy that's easier to digest, look out for a lacto-free in your next
0:50.5	food shop. To find out more, go to lactofree.co.com.uk. How to Fail is proudly
0:56.7	partnering with a lacto free through June. Delicious Dairy with all the taste, none of the lactos.
1:15.5	Welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day.
1:20.3	This is the podcast that I started because I wanted to know how other people survived failure and what, if anything, they learned along the way.
1:23.8	This was not something that happened to me.
1:26.1	And so it was foreign and it was terrifying. I never
1:29.0	could have imagined the consequences being so far reaching. Okay, what am I, how am I going to do
1:35.3	my CV? Do I put that I worked at the White House? Do I not? My guest today is an activist, producer,
1:43.5	and podcaster. She is also, in her own words,
1:47.7	the patient zero of online harassment. Her 2015 TED Talk, The Price of Shame, has to date been
1:55.2	viewed over 20 million times. She has repeatedly spoken out about cyberbullying and the need to find one's own
2:02.8	voice. She has a master's degree in psychology from the London School of Economics, where her
2:08.9	thesis dealt with the effects of pretrial publicity on juror impartiality. Her podcast, which
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