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Monica Lewinsky is emerging from the shadows.
And the former White House intern, whose affair with a US president made her name a byword for "the other woman", is reclaiming the spotlight.
On Thursday she spoke during a conference against cyberbullying in Vancouver, Canada.
 She spoke candidly of the humiliation she suffered due to a 1998 sex scandal with then president Bill Clinton and claimed her reason for breaking years of silence was not politics.
 "It is time to stop tip-toeing around my past," Lewinsky said during a talk during which, at moments, she welled up.
 The 41-year-old recounted announcing her campaign to end online bullying at a Forbes Under 30 summit in Philadelphia late last year, stepping back into the spotlight after about a decade of keeping a low profile.
 She joked about being "hit on" by a 27-year-old man whose unsuccessful pick-up line was that he could make her feel like she was 22 years old again.
 "I am probably the only person over 40 who does not want to be 22 again," Lewinsky quipped.
Then she told the story that everyone knows, but she told it in this way: "At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss." She spoke of that "improbable romance", and the legal and political maelstrom that followed when the scandal broke, two years later.
 Few hands were raised when Lewinsky asked those at the prestigious gathering who among them didn't regret something they had done when 22.
 She spoke of being swept up into a political, legal, and media maelstrom. Pictures and stories focused on the scandal were hot commodities online.
 "This scandal was brought to you by the digital revolution," Lewinsky said. "This rush to judgment enabled by technology led to mobs of virtual stone throwers. I was branded a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo, and, of course, 'that woman'".
 She said she was motivated to campaign against cyberbullying by the 2010 suicide of an 18-year-old New Jersey freshman who was bullied online after he had been secretly filmed kissing another man.
  She noted high-profile hacks in the past year that resulted in embarrassing photos or messages being released, and rapaciously consumed, online.
 "A marketplace has emerged when public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry," Lewinsky pointed out. "The more shame, the more clicks. The more clicks, the more advertising dollars."
 She urged an end to "shaming as a blood sport" by resorting to compassion and empathy instead of bullying and ridicule.
 "Imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline," Lewinsky suggested at the close of a talk met with a standing ovation.
 After news of the affair broke, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 but was acquitted by the Senate.
 His wife Hillary, a former secretary of state widely tipped to run for president in 2016, says she has "moved on".  
Additional reporting by Bloomberg


'Who never made a mistake at 22?': Monica Lewinsky reclaims spotlight with anti-bullying talk

Monica Lewinsky speaks at a conference in Vancouver about the abuse she and others have received online.

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The former White House intern , whose claim to fame was her affair with president Bill Clinton, talks candidly about the scandal


'Who never made a mistake at 22?': Monica Lewinsky reclaims spotlight with anti-bullying talk

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The former White House intern , whose claim to fame was her affair with president Bill Clinton, talks candidly about the scandal

The former White House intern , whose claim to fame was her affair with president Bill Clinton, talks candidly about the scandal