Sunday Pick: How to reclaim your narrative (w/ Monica Lewinsky) | from How to Be a Better Human

0:02Happy Sunday, y 'all. Elise Hugh here. Today, we're bringing you a Sunday pick where we share an episode of another podcast from TED, handpicked by us for you. Monica Lewinsky is an anti-bullying activist and host of Reclaiming with Monica, a podcast of unguarded conversations about how to make sense of the world. In today's episode of How to Be a Better Human, which was recorded in front of a live audience at TED 2026, host Chris Duffy speaks with Monica about how she finds healing. They discuss the role of public shaming online, the differences between cancel culture and accountability culture, and how to have more empathy after surviving trauma.

0:41How to Be a Better Human looks in unexpected places for new ways to improve and show up for one another. If you want to hear more insights like this, listen to How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts. Learn all about TED's podcasts at podcasts.ted.com. That's coming up.

1:05This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today's episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the 2026 TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada. And today's guest is Monica Lewinsky. Monica is someone who other people have tons of instant preconceived ideas and opinions about. She has been the butt of jokes and song lyrics and tabloid news stories for years because of a sexual encounter she had when she was 22 years old with then-president Bill Clinton that became highly public. But I was really interested in talking to Monica because in recent years, she has been hosting a podcast called Reclaiming.

1:42It's a show where Monica and her guests talk very openly and candidly about the ways that they have been perceived and how they are trying to rewrite their own narratives and sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The show is an invitation to listeners to, and I'm quoting here, find their own connection to the stories of how we get back what was once lost or taken from us. Now, Monica's story is obviously an extreme case. It was incredibly public and dramatic. Very few people are going to experience having their most embarrassing mistakes from their 20s broadcast on the nightly news every single night for months.

2:16However, I think that all of us these days have to navigate a gap between our private personal selves and the version of us that we put out into the world publicly, whether that's on social media or on a broader screen. Everyone is at some point going to have to figure out how to handle an embarrassment, a mistake, a humiliation. All of us are going to have times where we have to decide whether we judge or shame or exclude someone else or whether we offer them some grace, a possibility at redemption and reconciliation. And I think there's an incredible amount that all of us can learn from Monica's reflections on her experience about reclaiming your narrative, about power dynamics, about mistakes, about bullying and cruelty and about empathy and redemption.

2:59So to get us started, here is a clip from Monica's 2015 TED Talk, which was called The Price of Shame. When the story broke in January 1998, it broke online. It was the first time the traditional news was usurped by the internet for a major news story. A click that reverberated around the world. What that meant for me personally was that overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one worldwide. I was patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously. This rush to judgment enabled by technology led to mobs of virtual stone throwers.

3:55Granted, it was before social media, but people could still comment online, email stories, and of course, email cruel jokes. news sources plastered photos of me all over to sell newspapers banner ads online and to keep people tuned to the tv do you recall a particular image of me say wearing a beret now i admit i made mistakes especially wearing that beret But the attention and judgment that I received, not the story, but that I personally received, was unprecedented. I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo, and of course, that woman. I was seen by many, but actually known by few. And I get it.

5:03It was easy to forget that that woman was dimensional, had a soul, and was once unbroken. We are going to be back with this special live conversation with Monica Lewinsky in just a moment.

5:28This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall, that cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or the Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear. When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2 % daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay.

6:09Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch, Terms and more at AppleCard.com. This episode is brought to you by Walmart Business. The best leaders might tell you the work that moves an organization forward doesn't happen in spreadsheets or supply chain emails. It happens when you have the space to think big. That's the idea behind Walmart Business. It's built to take the friction out of running an organization so your team isn't losing hours to procurement logistics when they could just be focused on the problems that actually matter. With an ever-expanding business assortment, everyday low prices, and fast, reliable shipping, Walmart Business keeps your operations running smoothly.

6:50Shop online, in-store, or through the Walmart Business app. However works best for you. Simpler operations, smarter spending. It's Walmart built for your business. Sign up for a free Walmart business account at business.walmart.com. This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on Season 6 of Planet Visionaries, stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations.

7:37Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

8:02And we are back. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in Vancouver, Canada at TED 2026. Monica, I'm so excited to get to talk to you. Yes, Chris. Hi, everybody. So the first question that I have for you is, we were talking with one of the producers of this show, and she told someone who was 18 that we were doing this episode, and they said, who is Monica Lewinsky? Oh, I love it. And I actually thought that might be an interesting way to start, which is, how do you answer that question? Who is Monica Lewinsky? Gosh, I think that I would probably say who I am today versus who I am in Wikipedia, right?

8:47But I think today I feel especially, I think there are probably some women who are in their 50s or older in the audience. And I feel like I have found so much of myself in my 50s and that I just keep getting more and more comfortable with who I am. And in answering who I am, I don't actually know how to answer that. I feel like that's sort of one of those questions that people who know you well can answer with adjectives. And I like to think of myself as someone who's thoughtful, fucked up, works on herself, you know. It also feels to me like so much of the project of your podcast, Reclaiming, is about this idea of who am I versus who do other people think I am.

9:40And the same for other people as well, right? Everyone who you interview has some version of that story. You have one of the most dramatic ones possible. Exactly. The idea for Reclaiming as a podcast, I had initially been thinking about it as a topic for a book. And had been keeping notes on my phone. and I eventually got to a point where I realized it was far more interesting to have the conversation around reclaiming with other people than it was to just talk about myself. Everybody has reclaiming moments. I think we tend to think of them as these top line notes. You would look at me and go, Monica's reclaimed her narrative, but I have also reclaimed so many different things and in small moments.

10:25Just this morning, I had a somatic therapy session over Zoom, and it was taking the time to sort of acknowledge with the therapist I work with, oh, this is a really important thing for me that I am saying, I see this change that can be made that I want to be making. and there's a part of me that's not ready and I'm going to be okay with that. It sounds so tiny. It sounds like such a small thing, but for someone who's always felt like she was running out of time because I lost so much time, it's a really big thing. I have a lot of questions that are around this same idea, right? Because I think that isn't actually a small thing.

11:14It's a really big thing, right? How do you reclaim the idea? How do you have small moments or big moments that are yours and not what someone else is telling you your story should be. How can a regular person who's maybe going through this on a less dramatic scale, how can they take some lessons about what we can do to have ourselves be the ones defining who we are rather than letting other people define us? Well, I think, I mean, I think of myself as a regular person. Sure. But I just mean like impressive and, you know. Well, thank you, but I still think of myself as a regular person. And I think that in many ways, the process of reclaiming who you are, whether you've gone through something on a big global stage, or you have lost your job, or maybe lost part of your identity in getting divorced, or some aspect of yourself.

12:01There's so many different ways. I think that it begins in a strange way with an act that's kind of like putting on a seatbelt when you get in the car. Because I think for me, when I was going through such a difficult time in 98 and the decade after, my friends and my family reflecting back to me kind of who my true self was allowed me to have an anchor. So if I had been somebody who had never invested in those relationships, I wouldn't have had that. And I think for me that aspect started there. And that kind of goes hand in hand with what I was saying about going into my 50s of recognizing everybody moves through a healing process differently and that healing is never linear.

12:54It's always sort of like a spiral shape. And so you will think you've mastered something when you're kind of cresting the top and then you realize, oh, you'll think, fuck, I like here again, but you're actually not here again. You went down in order to go up. And that's been a really important, hard thing for me to accept because I want it to be linear. Something that I heard you say that struck me was that healing this is not like healing a cut. Yeah. Can you talk about what you mean by that? I think it's exactly, you know, that we have a timeline for a cut. We know, you know, that in the first few days, this is what will happen.

13:36If you, if you put this ointment on, if you put this bandaid on, if you take care of your wound in this certain way, that you will then end up with either completely healed skin or a scar, right? But that's the process. And I think that emotional trauma is so different because we, I think particularly for the times that we're living in, my hope for the younger generations is that we're already having so many more conversations about trauma in ways that we didn't when I was a kid or we didn't when I was in my 20s. I think it'll hopefully be different for kids because they will be being raised with an awareness of trauma.

14:22So healing emotional trauma is, again, not linear. And it's different for everybody. And I think that's what's so hard is that especially when we're suffering, or we're watching someone we love supper, all we want to do is like, just tell me the three things to do and I will do them. But those three things may not be what works for you in part, I think, because we all store trauma differently, right? So you and I can go through the same traumatic experience, but that very same experience is actually completely different inside our nervous system. And so that's where you are having to have grace with yourself, which is so hard.

15:09Something I wonder about when I think about you and your story is why are you here on a public stage? Like if it was me, I can imagine that there would be a real desire to like change my name and go and live in another country. So why are you here? Why are you still Monica Lewinsky? Why are you not like a British farmer named Monique Exactly. Monique Lewski. So I think that there are different stages to that for me. In 99, after the impeachment was wrapping up, the idea that I could ever go change my name legally was really not going to happen. There was no way that that could have gone through a court system without some journalists finding out.

15:56So then that wouldn't work. And I think that also as I started to try to figure out and with my family, try to figure out how to begin to move forward, I also realized I didn't want to change my name because in part, no one ever asked Bill Clinton, you know, did you think about changing your name? Now, there's a little ridiculousness because obviously he was the president. Everybody knows who he is. But you understand that that's often the question the woman gets asked. So I think that from there, I did want to retreat into a private life. And that was a large part of why I went to graduate school in 2005 in London.

16:45and when I came out of graduate school, the whole hope and the plan was to get a job and try to become as normal as I could be. My best friend from college, who's still one of my best friends, is always teasing me. She's like, it was never going to be normal for you, Monica. I'm just not normal. So, and a lot of the healing work that I had to do was the acceptance and the integration of the idea that I wasn't going to get to leave 1998 Monica Lewinsky in the dust. She was going to have to integrate and be part of who I am today, who I am moving forward. And ultimately, in terms of reentering the public arena, I had tried everything else.

17:30I had gone on 50 job interviews and nobody would hire me. And I tried starting a business, but I'm Libra rising and I could see both sides to every decision. And so that does not bode very well for having a business on your own. And the only opportunities, the only doors that kept opening to me were around public spaces, being in public spaces, being a public person. And ultimately in 2014, after kind of this, what I call my dark decade, I had done enough healing and was also at the same time at the end of my rope. I was like, I don't know what else to do. I'm also now like early 40s and I can't support myself financially.

18:18So I was very lucky to come from an upper middle class family, but I didn't come from the kind of family where there were resources to just support me financially for the rest of my life. So when I wrote a first person essay in Vanity Fair in 2014, which were sort of my first public words in a decade, it was an experiment. You know, it was jumping in with no fucking idea where I was going to land. There are so many amazing episodes of Reclaiming, but the very first episode is you talking about your own story. And I really, I'm not just saying this because you're here. I think it is like one of the most incredible hours of audio that I've ever heard.

18:57And I think everyone should listen to it. And a big part of that is, you know, you talking about having to face like, well, who am I going to be? Who can I be? What paths are open to me? And something I hadn't known about your story is that by all rights and means, you should have had your legal fees paid for. But there was kind of a vindictive way in which your legal fees were not paid. So you were truly deeply in debt to legal fees, and you had to figure out ways to move forward. And you had your family support. But when people weren't going to hire you, this wasn't like, I can just do anything.

19:35You had to figure out how to move forward. Right. And just as backstory for anyone here who might not know in the States, from the Independent Counsel Act, they had had a stipulation in there that if you were investigated by an independent counsel and you were not indicted, you were allowed to apply to have your legal fees reimbursed. So both Reagan and then President, First President Bush, who was vice president at the time, both had their legal fees reimbursed from Iran-Contra. And Bill Clinton had a very small amount that they approved. Vernon Jordan had a very small amount of legal fees that they approved.

20:17And I was denied completely. And somebody just said to me about two days ago, they were saying, well, you know, if Michael Flint got his legal fees reimbursed, you should be able to get yours. I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. Yeah. It seems to me like in that episode where you're talking about all this, you say that the hardest part for you actually was not in the middle of 98. It was after when the storm had kind of died down and you were there and it felt like, what is left? What's left for me to move forward into? So how did you get past that part? How did you survive what you call the dark decade?

20:57I think that it was a number of different things. My therapist will often say, you know, sometimes the difficulties I might have in letting go of a situation or hope or wish or dream is a reflection of an old coping mechanism that saved my life before, that I just didn't give up. And part of that just not giving up included dissociation, included not delusion in a, you know, DSM delusion kind of way, but a delusion of, well, I'm just going to focus on the hope. I'm just going to try to find the hope. And that helped in some ways. I think another pillar was my mom is very Pollyanna-ish. And it was so annoying.

21:47You know, just in 98. I know. in 98 and she would say well you'll see you'll be able to go outside again you'll see you'll be able to go out without a hat again you'll be able to I was like you don't know what you're talking about and but I like looking back I think that somebody being this kind of beacon and shining light of hope was also something I could anchor on but then there's the more practical and I had at the time I had stopped doing more traditional therapy and I started to work with someone who now people understand it a bit more when I say it's resonance and vibrational work. So he uses sound to heal your field, your energetic field.

22:32So that work was very, very deep for me. And I still do that work to today. So I think in a year or two, it'll be 20 years that I've been working with this person and saved and changed my life. But I also from there brought in so many different healing modalities of EFT, also known as tapping. I think trying anything, anything that somebody said, oh, I did this. I was like, I'll try it. But it was, I think really the work I did with Ken was probably the most pivotal because it was for my soul. And I think what it did was it helped me find my light again. We're going to take a quick break and then we will be right back.

23:32Think about how much knowledge at work lives in people's heads. How to run a report, how to use a tool, how to complete a process. And when that knowledge isn't documented, teams reinvent the wheel or do the same task differently. That's the problem today's sponsor, Scribe, is built to solve. Scribe is a specialized intelligence platform trusted by 94 % of the Fortune 500. It captures work as it happens and automatically turns it into step-by-step guides so nobody writes documentation from scratch. You choose what gets redacted automatically, and once reviewed, the guide's ready to share. From there, anyone can launch real-time on-screen guidance showing exactly where to click inside the tool they're using.

24:12The result? New hires get up to speed faster, and your experts stop answering repeat questions. Plus, those workflows can give your AI agents the context they need to operate on how your company works. Learn more at scribe.com slash TTD and mention TED Talks Daily for your first month of Scribe capture free on select plans. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot how slash TTD. This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India?

24:56That's what you'll hear on Season 6 of Planet Visionaries, stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

25:34And we are back. Something that is also really clear in talking to you, even just in the short time that we've been talking right now, is you have a great sense of humor. Thank you. You're definitely able to laugh about things. I think people are probably surprised by that about you. Gallows humor has always been something in my family, and I'm culturally Jewish, and I think that's also the gallows humor there comes there. But I came to understand over time that it's interesting laughter and gratitude shift your frequency and your vibration faster than anything else. And so I love to laugh. And I think that it's also disarmed people in many ways.

26:20And I think that when we all laugh, it's a collective, when we all laugh together at the same thing, it's a collective experience. And in part, you know, since we're sitting here at TED, 11 years ago when I stood on the red circle, it was really important to me that when I had this instinct of this funny thing that had happened to me about being hit on by... Wait, can you share that? Because I truly think that's one of the best jokes that's ever been told at Ted. It's a real story. So it's not even like a joke. So it's a younger man is trying to hit on you. Exactly. So you're all here. Randall Lane, who gave the talk last night on billionaires.

27:01So he created Forbes 30 Under 30 Conference, and he had asked me to come speak. And it was the very first public speaking I did. And so everybody in the audience was 30 and under, or under 30. and this 27 year old guy hit on me that evening after my talk and it was amazing because his pickup line was I can make you feel 22 again and and I you know he's cute so maybe I thought about it for a second but um you know uh maturity prevailed and I was telling a friend of mine this story on the phone that night and I was like you're not going to believe what happened to me And I said, I was like, I'm probably the only person over 40 who doesn't want to be 22 again.

27:49And so when I thought about putting that in the talk, I was actually, you know, you, if anybody else here is given a talk, you have 8 million people look at it to get thoughts from people. And there were some people who were very smart women who were like, I don't think you should do this. It's sexualizing you. And you're trying to move away from that. And I felt so deep in my bones because of how humor had helped me survive up until that point. And my family. I mean, in the period between the FBI sting where I learned about this investigation and the investigation becoming public, I could leave the house.

28:32But, you know, I now have this experience where I'd been apprehended by the FBI. And I now knew I was up Schitt's Creek and they threatened my mother and all this stuff. And so anytime I left the house, like I'd go over to the lamp and I'd say, I'm just going out to the drugstore, you know, or my mom would jokingly go, Ken Starr is very attractive. And so, I mean, we would just, it's because there's an absurdity. And I think when, you know, we've all heard people say you can laugh or cry. And I prefer to laugh. Laugh till I cry even. Oh, that's a mess. Yeah. For me, one of the things that I think is really powerful about humor and laughter, too, is that it can help you see a situation from multiple perspectives.

29:21That all of them can be true in the same moment. Yeah. I bring that up because I think that one of, in addition to just the really powerful work that you've done and the eloquent way that you speak about it, I think one of the things that is really resonant with people is looking at what you went through and the situation and how it is seen in a really different light, that that same situation is now seen in much more nuanced way. By me as well. You know, I think that my beliefs and understanding of what happened to me and what I chose and engaged in and all those things that I think that that's shifted too.

30:01And it's such an important part of healing of the kind of the elasticity that we're talking about that, you know, you move forward and you move back. It's there is context changes, you might learn something, you know, it may not for everybody, it may not be, oh, there's a huge cultural movement of Me Too 2.0. Although many, I think many women did go through that and men, I think not only men who have been victimized themselves, But I think also, sadly, the men who were least likely to have actually done something wrong with women were the ones wondering, did I do something wrong? It's been an interesting process for me.

30:41And I think that's part of the idea of healing and trauma being living things that are a part of us in a way. So one of the things that I actually don't have a haven't fully figured this out, but maybe you can have some thoughts on this and we can figure it out somewhat together is is how shame is involved here, because obviously there was a lot of shaming. There's a lot of public shame, and you've talked about how that was a really powerful and negative piece of this that you had to overcome. But the part that I haven't quite figured out is it now feels like we live in a time politically where people are shameless who should feel shame.

31:22And what role should shame play? Where is it positive and where is it negative? Or is it always negative? Because that's the part that I haven't figured out. Well, I think that both Roxane Gay and Kara Swisher talk about the difference between cancel culture and accountability culture. And I think that's an incredibly important distinction, that there are behaviors that people engage in for which they need to be held accountable. And then there are the behaviors that are too reflexive, too reactive. I don't know if anyone else ever has this experience, but sometimes I'll be at a dinner party and I hear myself spout off on something that I only read the headline.

32:05I don't know what I'm talking about. I didn't read the article, but I think I have an opinion. And I think a large portion of what can happen sometimes in cancel culture is we will all hear a little something and we go, yeah, that sounds like a bandwagon I would get on. and we get on the bandwagon, not really even realizing the impact of what we're doing. So I think you're right. I think we're living in times where shamelessness is more rampant than it had been in the past. And I also wonder sometimes, I've been thinking about this, if we need to have, it's like we need to maybe have some more words, some more names for things Like we need to kind of dissect shame and give it different names because we are talking about something that from the old, old, old days pre-printing press was a way of keeping social norms for people.

33:08And it still does that a little, but we've also come to learn so many different things. And so I wonder about that. It makes total sense. And, you know, I think so much of the destructive power of shame is this, like, piling on and this creation of a version of someone that is a monster. For me, at least, you really answered my question in drawing that line between, like, accountability and shaming and cancel, in the sense of what cancel culture means in that sense. Right. Because I'm sometimes skeptical of, like, sometimes people use cancel culture to say, like, I don't think I should be allowed to be critiqued for saying something that's offensive.

33:42You know, they sometimes use that as a scapegoat when it's not actually. And I think so much in so much of what we've been talking about this week or hearing this week around engaging in dialogue, we don't have enough places and avenues in our current culture to do that. And I wonder if we did, if critique might be easier. I think sometimes maybe people get defensive because they're narcissistic assholes. And sometimes people get defensive because they're actually terrified of what could this mean. And I can't let this in at all and must defend it because the drop from here to being canceled is enormous.

34:25And the consequences can be grave, even for some people. And just to add on to that is I think sometimes we are much more harsh in our critique of the person who is most easily available to us, the person who's the closest, rather than the person who is the most accountable, the person who's the most powerful and responsible. It's easier to attack the person who's listening to us than the person who's ignoring us while they go about their evil deeds. Right. Inequality keeps coming up, but it feels like the inequality in responsibility. Yeah. For people who are young and they're just figuring out their lives, right?

35:02You've talked about how a lot of what was a challenge for you post everything that happened, post the scandal, was getting back onto like a normal developmental track. That was something that you and your therapist worked a lot on. In some ways, I think nowadays, like every young person has to figure out like, what is my private narrative of myself versus this public narrative that is written online. So what advice would you give to a young person who's trying to figure out like, what is my internal story of who I am versus what my peers and the world says about me? Yeah, that's a good question.

35:39I think that with young people today who have all grown up with social media, they've tried different, you know, we all, as we grow up, we all try on different identities, right? So many people can go, oh, I had a punk rock phase. I did not have a punk rock phase, but I definitely had other phases. And we're trying on these different identities and in trying to figure out who we are, what feels right and what do we push back against. And I think that it is probably trying to figure out who you are is hard. I think that there are things I can speak to if somebody feels their narrative has run away from them.

36:25Well, I'd be curious to hear that. Yeah. And, and I'm curious also what helped you to figure out like who is Monica Lewinsky now? Well, I think a lot of who I am today is who I always was. And so, and that was a big part for me in the, a lot of the healing work that I did and in intentions is such a loaded word now, but in my hopes and dreams and intentions in stepping back out in 2014 was around this idea of being seen for my true self, because this caricature of me had been drawn. Some complete from things that were completely made up and some, you know, things that I had done that were fucked up and bad and, you know, or mistakes I made or, or stupid things I'd said or done.

37:11So like around when you've lost your narrative or that has happened, I think sometimes people use the word reinvention a lot. And I have a really hard time with that word because I think reinvention implies that what was there before needed to change. And really there's a space between someone, what's wrong with someone and what needs to change and maturing and evolving and healing. you know, so once again, I didn't really answer your question. No, you did. One thing it's making me think of is like the idea that you are opposed to reinvention because it's, you don't want to deny the person who you were before.

37:52Just for myself, I'll share just a small thing, not a dramatic one, but I didn't go to my high school reunion. And the reason I didn't go is because I don't really like the version of myself who I was in high school. You know, so like for me, I just don't feel like, I feel like I was really like insecure and not sure of myself. And so like, I feel like I was not my best self in the sense that I wasn't like, I didn't have a core, you know? I was just kind of like, is this going to make these people like me? And will that make people like me? Yeah, oh my God, I can relate. And so I didn't want to go back.

38:28But part of that is being like, that Chris isn't who this Chris is. And you're actually making me think of like, well, maybe have a little more empathy for that, Chris. Like you are still the same person. Because in some ways I would like to imagine that I'm not that person anymore. That's interesting. Even though I'm asking you for approval in front of an audience. So, you know, how far have things changed? You're just not the quarterback. That's the only difference. Oh, I wasn't the prom queen. So, but I think that there is like, and that kind of goes to the heart of all of what we're talking about, which in a way is that is the grace for yourself, the empathy for yourself, the recognizing who you were, how did that contribute to who you are to today?

39:14Most of us, if you're one of those people who notices at a party that there's someone standing on their own, if you've been that person, which I've been, you are going to notice and try to bring someone into your circle to have the conversation because you've experienced that. And there probably are ways that you show up more empathetic in the world because of what that high school experience was. But that integration, I mean, that's kind of what I was talking about of having to integrate, you know, 1998 beret wearing Monica Lewinsky and who I wanted, who I had become, who I wanted to become, who I hoped I had become.

39:54That's the grace for yourself. That's the self-forgiveness. The one thing I think you do gain when you go through something terrible is like a fellowship with other people who have been through something terrible like that, too. You can understand what they're going through in a way that other people can't. And some of that is like, you know, talk about gallows humor, right? Like if an ER nurse makes a joke to another ER nurse, it's funny. And if I go into an ER and make that same joke to the ER nurse, she goes, you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't have the shared context. So it feels like some of what we've talked about and some of what you've done in your work is to take that fellowship with other people who have had their narrative taken away from them, who have been publicly shamed, and to try and at least make them understand that you see them, and that there is a path forward.

40:46Yes, and I think a lot of the work that I do, just even in a small, narrow way, I executive produced a show called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox that's on Hulu right now that came out last fall. And it's a scripted series on Amanda's experience. She's also an EP on the show. And I brought the show to 20th Television and put the project together because I understood what it meant to be misunderstood on a global stage as a young woman. And I understood what it meant to have that long tail follow you and how people will tell you to just move on and yet they don't actually allow you to have a narrative that is any different from what had happened from the narrative they're telling you to move on from.

41:34And it was very important to both Amanda and myself, and Hulu was wonderful about this, was showing the aftermath. So the story, in telling her story, it could have very easily ended when she gets out of prison, yay, but she comes home and what it means to find yourself in a totally new normal and how does that impact your family and what happens in those quiet moments. It's important for us to all understand, but then it's important because this will likely happen to someone else. And every time someone moves through it, it gets easier and it's a little better for the next person. And we get a little farther in helping people understand those things.

42:21So there is, I think, that sense of fellowship. But I also want to say, too, when you haven't had the experience of everything falling apart, and you get through it, and then you actually do look back later, and you go, oh, thank God that thing that I thought was the worst thing in the world that I didn't want to get out of bed for happened. And when you have enough of those experiences, it also allows you to be more resilient when it happens again. And you don't maybe fall as far down, you get up faster, you, you maybe don't catastrophize as much. And so that's, that's what's hard about it, too, because we shouldn't have to go through so much.

43:05And you don't want to gloss over what is, is difficult. And at the same time, so often in life, when those horrible things happen, I don't want to say the silver lining, but something goes away for something better to come in. Have you been able to get to a place or do you feel like that? Like, oh, yeah, you wouldn't, like, you wouldn't take away that all the trauma. Oh, no, I would 100 % trauma. I was like, that's 100%. People are like, would you change it now that you can help people? No, no, no. Would you change? I'm like, yes, yes, I would. So I my life looks nothing like, you know the life that I had dreamed for myself um and I feel very privileged to be in a place where I can help other like ease other people's suffering but it has come at a cost yeah you know it's come at a cost for me and um yeah but I have had I've had the experience of um now a number of times something that I had kind of put all my, I put all my eggs in the basket.

44:10I put all my hope behind this idea. I worked so hard for something and it, it didn't happen and it fell apart. And that ended up being a moment where I now go, thank God that happened. Thank God. And so it's meant the more times that I've then found myself, because unfortunately it was not just one experience. It's happened numerous times. The last time it happened, I didn't get that upset. I was like, all right, I'm going to just plow forward because I know that this will have happened for a reason.

44:59minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish. Cases closed. Requests handled. No extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping.

45:35It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase.

46:07Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Do you snore? Did somebody hand you a CPAP? And did you quietly stop using it? The mask that never quite seals, the hose tugging at you every time you roll over, a machine sitting abandoned in a closet. Excite OSA works a different way. It treats a root cause instead of managing the noise, and you use it while you're awake. 20 minutes a day, while the coffee brews, while you set your fantasy lineup. An FDA-cleared prescription device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea.

46:50Then you go to bed like a person, nothing strapped on, nothing plugged in. In clinical studies, 90 % of patients saw a reduction in snoring. No sleep study required. Prescribed online, shipped to your door. ExciteOSA at springsleep.com slash sleep20. Code sleep20 for 20 % off. Excite OSA is an FDA-cleared prescription-only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. Not for everyone. Individual results vary. Risks and benefits at springsleep.com.

47:34One thing that I personally appreciate a lot, and I imagine that people listening and people in the room also can really appreciate, is to hear you talk about something like a dark decade and then to know that there is another side to that. I feel like when I have been in really dark periods in my own life, it's hard to imagine that you can be in a dark place and then there can be something else. And so especially when it's like, I think it's easier to imagine if you're like, I had a rough day. Well, maybe tomorrow will be better. But then to think like you had a decade that was really, really bad.

48:09and your life is not like that anymore. I think that's actually a really important message for people that it can last for a long time and it still isn't forever. Yeah, and things can get better and you can still have to deal with the difficulty that you had back then. Like it doesn't always just poof, erase. Even when you're in a better place and that's sort of again that dance with trauma is the ability to know, and that's kind of the core of resilience, right, is sort of bouncing back faster and easier every time, because that's what life is made of. That's this, sorry to get woo-woo, that's this dimension, you know, so that's what we came here for.

48:56How do you think about forgiveness and what forgiveness means? I do subscribe to the belief that, one, forgiving someone does not excuse their behavior. And I think that was a really important thing for me to learn and understand. And the other is that forgiveness helps you more than it does the other person. It's always better when the forgiveness comes because somebody has made amends. Someone has taken responsibility for how they've harmed someone else. But that doesn't always happen. Do you feel like anyone has made amends to you, like personally, privately? Um, nobody who was a key player in 1998.

49:43I think personally, I have had many experiences where people, whether it's in a private moment, or even on social media, people will say, you know, I laughed at all those jokes, and I'm really sorry. And I have this own little cuckoo thing for myself where it's like, anytime somebody says something positive to me, which I would consider that positive, it erases two negative things from the past. So I take those moments in, you know. You talked about this in your talk and you talk about it in the podcast, but the idea, right, like that when all this happened, that you were 22, you had graduated from college months before.

50:27Months before. I feel like this was, you know, my first job out of college. I've noticed even in our conversation and your public interviews, you're very conscientious to not say, like you always say, I did some, like I made mistakes. But I would say, right, this is so not your mistakes to make, right? Like that a 22 year old, like, right, I think this is a system that was deployed against you. What's always felt really important to me and something that I interrogated personally so much in the Me Too era is there is a difference between women who have had experiences where they have been forced into some sort of sexual relationship with their boss and they did not want to be there at all.

51:19and every moment of it was excruciating trauma. And that was not this. There are many questions about the power differentials. We didn't, you know, abuse of power was something we only really ever talked about and thought about with Nixon in that kind of a Watergate scenario. It was an extreme, gross, abuse of power. I wrote a piece on the survivors, the Epstein survivors, in part because I had been abhorred by a conversation I had in London where someone was saying, oh, this woman who had been around at the time said that those girls were happy to be there. They were getting handbags, you know, and it's like, what do you, you know, like this is grooming.

52:02And so it makes you think about, okay, well, where is the line in what we see and the line in what we experience ourselves? You know, you begin to interrogate that. But I think what is, what I cannot deny is I knew that he was married. So there are also plenty of people who cross those lines all the time. Many people in here probably have. I'm sure everybody in here knows somebody, whether it's you or someone else who's had an affair. It is very, very, very common. The person who is married is the one who's more responsible, but there is always the possibility that those behaviors that you've engaged in hurt other people who didn't make a choice.

52:48And I engaged in that. So that's where I feel it's important. It's interesting because that's evolved for me too in a big way of, as I've you know, matured and gotten older. And I'm now this age where it's like, I think I could no sooner have a relationship with a 24 year old than, you know, than I could a 94 year old. So again, part of the abuse of power came even when the investigation was, became public, because of how I was thrown under the bus, because of how I was lied about, how I was talked about. I think because there had been this servicing narrative that was out there about me, that I felt this deep need in a protective way for myself and in a way to hold on to what had actually transpired was also a declaring of my agency, too.

53:51So it's, you know, it's complicated. it. After you had gone through everything, you went and got a master's in social psychology. And I'm really curious about that choice because it seems like you were learning about social psychology in the classroom, but no one knew more about social psychology than you in your life. And so I'd love to hear just like what resonated with the academic research and also what struck you as like, these people do not, these theories do not get what I have been through. So I think there were definitely moments, my advisor, Dr. Jeff Chelevich, she tells a funny story of how we studied.

54:38I went to school in graduate school in London. No fucking idea that there's a difference between American and European social psychology, FYI. So we were learning about this thing called social representations. And she tells it much better. And she has a Brazilian an accent, but she, that I like walked into her office and I was like, I'm a social representation. Like, you know, so it is a very weird thing to, um, to kind of, to see yourself in that way, um, in categories of things that you're learning that are different. Or I had an experience in, there's a class where you learn all the research modalities.

55:17Basically they were like, well, you have to use reputable sources like the New York Times. And I'm like, the New York Times gets it wrong a lot, you know? And so that was an interesting perspective for me. But one of the hardest aspects for me, and I think with the public shaming that I went through, and this is probably true of most public shamings, is that there's often some sort of like tiny Any kernel, it may not be truth, but it's what you fear is a truth about you. And to have that amplified by other people is incredibly painful. There is still a version of me that is hearing all the negative things that were said about me publicly.

56:10And the fear of that. it's lessened the more I've done and that doesn't happen so much anymore. And it's so much why I have so much compassion for young people. And this happens to people of all ages online now, but especially young people who are growing up online. When I was a kid, the worst thing that would happen is like everybody in the school knew something. Or as an adult now, if one of us spills a glass of wine at a dinner, you're embarrassed. There's a perimeter around how many people saw this embarrassing thing. But when it's online, there is no way to draw a border. And I think that becomes a very complicated psychological experience because you literally feel like everyone is laughing at you.

57:04And I think that was some of what made the day the Star Report was put online come out. So like that exposure, that global exposure. But I think, you know, we've seen this with a lot of people now who have survived public shaming. And the important part is that as awful as it is, it doesn't have to be the end of your life. I was very moved in hearing you talk on your podcast about how one of the most powerful parts for you of the TED Talk coming out and your Vanity Fair article coming out was how people would say to your family really positive things about you, how much your work mattered to them, and how that was such a profound shift for you in the private versus the public.

57:55Right. And I think sort of going back to something I was saying, too, about the Amanda Knox show and her family is there's collateral damage whenever these public shamings happen. And when they happen on smaller, more private levels, they can have collateral damage, too. But it's just not quite as big. But, you know, I have a younger brother who was a sophomore in college when this happened. and he had to graduate college and move into the world. He chose to keep our last name. And, you know, he'd done nothing wrong. And yet he had to bear the brunt of what it meant for our family last name to become synonymous with a sexual act for a long time.

58:37So I think that there there is that balance now that is, I feel it's like a triple dose of pride when my dad, he's retired now. So he has this breakfast group on the weekend and someone in the breakfast group, listen to the podcast and love the episode, you know, that there is that I can feel the pride on them and I can feel how without us talking about it, it's a healing moment. And I'm so grateful because I have a niece and nephew who are eight and 10. And pretty soon there's going to have to be a conversation around like Auntie Monka is a public person. And what does that mean? And I'm so grateful that there are these other things to point to than just the worst thing that could have happened.

59:33You know, so very grateful. We can't end on a better note than that. Oh, okay. Thank you so much, Monica. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you for being here. And I also, I just want to say if there's anybody in the room here today who had been in the room 11 years ago when I gave my talk, I found myself feeling emotional as we round out here in Vancouver. just so much gratitude for the people who were in the room that day who made it possible for me to actually get up onto the red circle because boy, did I want to run away and just help change my life. And so I'm just, so just thank you. Thank you.

1:00:17This was an honor. Thank you so much. That is it for today's episode of how to be a better human. Thank you so much to everyone who made this episode possible. Thanks to all the on-site staff at the Vancouver Convention Center who made the live recording run so smoothly. Thank you to today's guest, Monica Lewinsky. You can listen to Reclaiming wherever you find podcasts. I really recommend you check out the show, especially that very first episode and all of the more recent episodes. They are really, really special. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me on my website, chrisduffycomedy.com, including information about my live show dates and also my book, humor me about how to laugh more every day.

1:00:57This episode of How to Be a Better Human was packaged delicately and then carried across the Canadian border just for you. On the TED side, our show is made by Daniela Balorezzo, Ban Ban Chang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lott, Tensika Sunmanivong, Antonio Leite, and Joseph Debrine. Ryan Lash put together this video and Mateus Salas checked our facts. On the PRX side, our show is brought to you by Morgan Flannery, Nora Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks to you for listening. Please send this episode to someone who you think would like it, someone who you'd like to talk about it with.

1:01:28We will be back next week with even more episodes of How to Be a Better Human. Thanks again for listening and take care.

1:01:54needs a team. Today's sponsor, Ashby, is the software that supports hiring for those ambitious teams. Ashby is the all-in-one recruiting platform used by the teams at Lovable, Notion, Plaid, and Clay. If you wish that AI could help you move faster through scheduling and scorecards, that you could find that silver medalist candidate from 18 months ago in a few seconds, or that you had better visibility into the state of your candidate pipeline, Ashby is for you. See why over 80 % of Forbes' top AI companies choose Ashby to hire the best talent. And visit www.ashbyhq.com slash TED. This episode of TED Talks Daily is brought to you by Apollo.io.

1:02:36We often talk about how great ideas can change the way we work. But turning ideas into action takes focus. And sometimes that focus gets lost in the busy work. For sales teams, finding the right people to connect with, reaching out, and keeping up with follow-ups can mean juggling multiple tools. Apollo.io brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up together in one platform, helping sales teams find the right buyers and spend less time managing scattered tasks and more time building meaningful connections. Whether you're a small business or a part of a larger organization, Apollo.io helps bring more of your sales workflow into one place so your team can focus on the conversations that matter.

1:03:14Ready to take a closer look? Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io.

1:03:44everything you need all in one place so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more.