All of the major bombshells from Monica Lewinsky's tell-all Call her Daddy interview

On January 21, 1988, Monica Lewinsky's life as she knew it ended.

The former White House intern had an affair with Bill Clinton, who was the president at the time, and when news of their relationship was released to the public, Lewinsky says she "lost her future".

Now 51, Lewinsky sat down with Alex Cooper on the Call Her Daddy podcast to reflect on the abuse of power that saw her torn apart by the media when she was just 24.

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Cooper and Lewinsky discussed the difference in consequences for the two parties involved in the affair: Clinton, the 51-year-old married President of the United States got a slap on the wrist and continued his life as one of the most powerful men in the world.

While Lewinsky, the 24-year-old White House intern, was publicly slut-shamed, body shamed and crucified.

"The consequences were just no where," she said of the repercussions for the former president.

"You know, I lost my future... I was lucky enough to hold on to a strand of my true self, but I lost my future."

Lewinsky opened up about the scandal like never before on the latest episode of Call Her Daddy, candidly speaking about how the situation with Clinton changed her life nearly three decades ago and still continues to affect her today.

These are the biggest bombshells from the hour long interview.

Five words she wishes she could tell her 22-year-old self

At the end the conversation, Cooper had one final question for Lewinsky, "if you could go back and talk to your 22-year-old self, what would you tell her?"

Lewinsky had a simple, five word answer: "Do not go to Washington."

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The scandal affected her life for decades

When Lewinsky reached her early thirties she was watching her friends hit career milestones, get married and start their families, telling Cooper that at that point "I still have nothing".

"It very much was that point when I realised how much had been taken from me," she said.

"I wasn't even allowed to go interview [at] certain places. Like a place would say, 'No, you can't come interview,' even though I was qualified to."

At one point, Lewinsky even considered changing her name just to give her a fair chance on the job market.

"But then... what, I'm going to walk into a job interview, the person in their head is like, 'Hmm that person looks a lot like Monica Lewinsky,'" she added.

"I also came to feel very strongly that I didn't want to change my name. Why should I have to change my name?

"You know, I bet nobody has asked Bill... did he ever think about changing his?"

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It took a toll on her self-confidence

"I was very self-conscious because of how I'd been sexualised and because... of having the most powerful man wagging their finger and say, 'I didn't have sex with that woman'," Lewinsky told Cooper.

Over the years she started to regain her confidence, but getting back into the dating world was always a struggle.

Lewinsky admitted that alcohol helped with her confidence for a while, but she no longer drinks, aside from a champagne on rare occasions.

"I haven't been successful at a relationship, I haven't been successful at all at a relationship that goes the full distance," she shared.

"But I have been really lucky and dated some amazing men. And those men, each in their own way, have helped me find a piece of myself again, you know?"

How she was manipulated by men in power

When news of the affair first broke, Clinton gave a public statement denying he had had any sexual relationships with Lewinsky which she says she was in two minds about.

On one hadn't, she says she agreed that he'd done the right thing because she "didn't want him to lose his job", even feeling guilty and as thought it was all her fault for confiding in a friend.

But on the other hand she felt "humiliated" to have the most powerful man in the country speak about her as if she was "damaged goods"

"It was gaslighting, you know? I think that was what I experienced on a pretty large scale. And it was devastating," she explained.

"And it was very frustrating and painful to have people talking about this in a way that was untrue."

It took years for her to regain some semblance of her life

Today, Lewinsky says she's grateful that she can be defined by who she is now even though she knows her history will always follow her.

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She acknowledged that she's come along way from who she was when the news of the affair first broke, but she'll never forget what she remembers as the hardest years of her life.

"I call it my 'dark decade,'" She said. "I mean it was a whole period of floundering and having no purpose.

"I mean, I'm always lucky my family's always been amazing. And I've always had friends, thank god."

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