Monica Lewinsky made her first public address this weekend at a Forbes summit in Philadelphia. The monologue was mostly about cyberbullying and how she fits into the broader picture — she was essentially the world's first cyberbullying victim after her relationship with then-President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. She also gave a shout-out to the artists who have name-dropped her in songs through the years, including Eminem, Beyoncé and Lil' Wayne.
From Forbes: "Calling herself 'Patient Zero, the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide by the Internet,' Lewinsky joked lightly about having been mentioned in rap lyrics by Beyoncé, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Wayne 'and all the rest,' and then recounted her story to the audience, many of whom may not have been old enough to be well-acquainted with the drama that made her name known worldwide."
"Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college, a 22-year-old intern in the White House, and more than averagely romantic, I fell in love with my boss," she said. "It happens. But my boss was the president of the United States. That probably happens less often.
"I became a public figure, not just around the United States, but around the entire globe. It was all done on the excruciatingly slow dial-up."
According to Lewinsky, 54 percent of Facebook users say they have been cyberbullied, and 43 percent of Internet-related suicides have occurred since the suicide four years ago of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers student who was secretly filmed kissing another man and then publicly humiliated.
When Clementi committed suicide in 2010, Lewinsky noted the story upset her mother and said it put her "back in 1998, when she might have lost me, when I, too, might have been humiliated to death."
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