51吃瓜

Politics changed forever 27 years ago. No election, assassination or international summit marked the shift. No tanks rolled, no walls fell. Yet a transformation occurred, not in America鈥檚 laws or institutions, but in how power was experienced, watched and consumed. Politics shed its sacred aura, became disconcertingly familiar and began to feel unmistakably like the kind of entertainment we were used to watching on television.

On August 17, 1998, after months of denials, US President Bill Clinton to a grand jury: 鈥淚 did have a relationship with Ms. [Monica] Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong.鈥�

Sex scandals in American politics were certainly nothing new. President John F. Kennedy鈥檚 remained whispered rumors, never televised. Gary Hart, daring reporters to follow him, like a stone when they did. Even Clinton himself had navigated earlier allegations from women, namely and , that might have ended another politician鈥檚 career. But Monica Lewinsky was a different proposition. She wasn鈥檛 merely another woman; she was the central, unwitting protagonist in an international psychodrama.

What set her affair with Clinton apart wasn鈥檛 the sex, juicy as that was. It was the unprecedented, raw access: the leaked transcripts, the damning voicemail, the infamous navy blue . This wasn鈥檛 just a scandal; it was a high-definition spectacle, delivered directly to every household and in real time.

Accidental celebrity

Clinton made history by becoming the first sitting president to testify before a grand jury as the target of a investigation. The questions were deeply personal and, at times, vulgar; the setting borderline surreal. Beamed from the White House via closed-circuit TV, Clinton answered prosecutors鈥� questions with lawyerly evasion and painstaking, almost excruciating, phrasing.

In one memorable exchange, the prosecutor asked: 鈥淢r. President, do you understand that the statement that there 鈥榠s鈥� no sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship, or any other kind of improper relationship, could be false if indeed there was one, even though it鈥檚 in the past?鈥� Clinton鈥檚 convoluted response became an instant cultural touchstone: 鈥淚t depends on what the meaning of the word 鈥榠s鈥� is. If the鈥攊f he鈥攊f 鈥榠s鈥� means is and never has been, that is not鈥攖hat is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true .鈥�

Following his grand jury appearance, Clinton delivered a televised address to the nation. It was short, stiff and heavy with legalisms. He admitted the relationship had been 鈥渘ot appropriate鈥� and that he had misled people, including even [his] wife.鈥� He appeared unsettled yet spoke with an underlying defiance. The nation and indeed the world remained transfixed, unsure how to feel 鈥� disgusted, tantalized or simply impressed by Clinton鈥檚 audacious bravado.

Three days later, on August 20, American cruise missiles struck targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. Officially a response to the East Africa embassy bombings, Operation was immediately dubbed a distraction. Jokes were made comparing these events to the previous year鈥檚 comedy film, ; in the film, a government spin doctor (Robert De Niro) and a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) work to fabricate a war in Albania to distract the public from a presidential sex scandal. It was, perhaps, the first time in history a significant international military action found itself relegated to a mere footnote in a domestic sex scandal.

What held this entire spectacle together, making it so utterly compelling, was Clinton himself. He wasn鈥檛 imposing like President Ronald Reagan, patrician like President George H.W. Bush or saintly like President Jimmy Carter. Clinton was fundamentally different. He possessed the easy manner of a man you might chat with in a Walmart supermarket checkout line 鈥� someone seemingly knowable, perhaps even someone who might flirt with you. His flaws, his all-too-human messiness, ironically, made him the first truly relatable president. That quality, once unthinkable in a commander-in-chief, now became an unexpected asset.

The age of the spectacle

By the end of that August, America鈥檚 political culture had undergone a quiet yet profound and lasting transformation. The presidency, once associated with distance and solemn dignity, had become a pivotal component in the nation鈥檚 entertainment machinery.

By the late 1990s, America was already a nation expertly 鈥渢rained in watching.鈥� Talk shows routinely blurred the line between confession and performance. Paparazzi relentlessly pursued not just film stars, but increasingly, personalities. Shows like packaged dysfunctional families as primetime entertainment. Stores now offered more than groceries 鈥� they stocked America鈥檚 new unholy secular scriptures: glossy weekly gossip magazines like People and National Enquirer. Into this readied landscape stepped Lewinsky: intern, lover, national punchline and, ultimately, a reluctant protagonist in the most-watched real-life soap opera the world had ever seen.

But to grasp how Monica became Monica鈩� 鈥� a name that, for a time, needed no surname 鈥� we need a brief glance at the preceding cultural landscape. Few figures shaped that terrain more dramatically than Madonna. Throughout the 1980s and 鈥�90s, the diva transcended mere pop stardom; she was a cultural agent provocateur who taught audiences how to look, how to stare and, crucially, how not to look away.

She turned taboo into a trending topic years before hashtags even existed. Whether on stage, publishing her explicit 1992 book, or using the word 鈥溾�� repeatedly on the Late Show with David Letterman, Madonna didn鈥檛 just push boundaries 鈥� she dissolved them. More significantly, she made it respectable, even desirable, to gaze intently鈥� and to enjoy the spectacle.

By the time Clinton鈥檚 affair was exposed, the public was ready. What once might have been muttered discreetly became common watercooler chat. And the media, by then no longer deferential gatekeepers but increasingly predatory content chasers, knew how to satisfy the appetite for tittle-tattle. Monica鈩� was like a gift from heaven.

Clinton鈥檚 scandal wasn鈥檛 merely covered; it was serialized. It possessed a clear structure, escalating suspense, compelling secondary characters (like civil servant and attorney ) and even unexpected wardrobe plot points. Lewinsky鈥檚 semen-stained blue Gap dress transcended mere evidence, as did a cigar Clinton used as a sex aid. They became pervasive cultural references, almost sacred objects in a new age of scandal. The narrative had sex, power, concealment, betrayal and a president who, with every denial, seemed only to get more intriguing.

In an earlier era, shameful exposure meant indelible disgrace, dishonor and often everlasting stigma. But shame was in the process of being redefined. It might still have felt temporarily humiliating, but it carried no lasting loss of respect or esteem and the disgrace was far from indelible: It was quickly effaced. But, with the rapid ascendance of celebrity culture, shame seemed oddly out of place. Becoming famous by any means necessary was quickly becoming a legitimate career aspiration and shame, at times, was simply accepted as collateral damage.

Lewinsky became an accidental celebrity: a woman who, by her own later , lost not just her privacy but her 鈥渞eputation and dignity and 鈥� almost [her] life.鈥� Clinton, meanwhile, seemed to waft above it all, protected less by institutional power than by his sheer attractiveness, an undeniable charisma and an audience seemingly too rewarded by his very human antics to abandon him.

It鈥檚 easy to categorize the scandal as purely political, and of course, it did have political consequences. But at its heart, it belonged less to Washington, DC, than to global popular culture. The public wasn鈥檛 shocked by what Clinton did; it was utterly captivated by the unprecedented access. People were allowed to watch it all unfold. The real revelation wasn鈥檛 about morality; it was about media. The affair didn鈥檛 signal the fall of a president; it heralded the rise of the culture of spectacle.

Scandal fatigue

鈥淚f you can鈥檛 trust the president to tell the truth, who can you trust?鈥� an incredulous reporter asked. But for much of the public, that question entirely missed the point. By then, Clinton was no longer being measured by old-fashioned virtues like trustworthiness or reliability, but by his performance.

Remarkably (perhaps), his approval ratings spiked after he admitted to the Lewinsky affair. This wasn鈥檛 despite the scandal: it was, in a perverse way, because of it. His transgression became fused with his relatability, even his disarming authenticity. The public was so exhausted by the continual prurient allegations against the president that what might have started as shock or indignation became an agreeable distraction. 鈥溾�� was the term used to describe the cultural desensitization.

He lied, he squirmed, he strangled grammar (as demonstrated previously when he defined the word 鈥渋s鈥�). But he did it all in plain sight. For a public raised on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Geraldo Rivera Show and the confessional stylings of reality TV, that transparency almost felt honest. (Today, of course, we are all habituated to US presidents who lie, squirm and strangle grammar.)

Lewinsky, meanwhile, was publicly and savagely destroyed. 鈥淚 was of losing a personal reputation on a global scale,鈥� she reflected years later, keenly aware of the Internet鈥檚 embryonic yet devastating role in her humiliation. Her name became a cipher for shame, a global punchline in a thousand late-night monologues. Yet, in time, she courageously reclaimed her voice, emerging not as an object of scandal but as a speaker, writer and against cyberbullying. If Clinton represented the survival of political power through personal disgrace, Lewinsky came to represent something arguably more modern and profound: the possibility of a woman surviving a potentially global scandal and, in the process, discovering agency.

The end of privacy

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of August 1998 wasn鈥檛 political or purely personal. It was cultural: the irrevocable departure of the concept of a 鈥減rivate life鈥� for public figures and, eventually, for virtually everyone. Clinton鈥檚 affair and the ravenous media machinery it cranked into life were features of a nascent era in which visibility became permanent, intimacy became endlessly shareable and secrets became monetizable. And everyone was left asking and answering a question: If the most powerful man in the world couldn鈥檛 conceal an affair, who the hell could?

Fast-forward to July 2025. At a performed by rock group Coldplay in Foxborough, Massachusetts, the jumbotron鈥檚 kiss-cam pans to a couple sharing what appears to be an intimate moment. The image flashes on massive screens across the stadium. The woman recoils, visibly embarrassed, as she realizes she鈥檚 been caught on camera. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin even comments on the scene. Within hours, the video of the brief encounter goes viral across social media. Reddit threads wildly about a potential affair as TikTokers frantically try to the pair. X explodes with . No one, anywhere, pauses to ask if this exposure was fair or proper. The story wasn鈥檛 about morality.

That fleeting moment, brief yet dramatic and seemingly random, is connected to August 1998 by a kind of molecular chain. It serves as a gentle reminder that the rules, such as they were, have fundamentally changed. There is no on-stage versus off-stage anymore. No quiet corner of life remains immune to broadcasting. There is no longer true privacy. We are all potentially 鈥渢hat woman鈥� or 鈥渢hat man鈥� now 鈥� framed, packaged and offered for the casual delectation of anyone. We are all shareable now. And today, we are so accustomed to it, we don鈥檛 notice. And, if we did, large demographics wouldn鈥檛 care. Generations Y and Z are products of the post-private era.

Clinton was the first president of that era. He was a politician who smudged the demarcation lines between statesman and spectacle, between leadership and sheer . He didn鈥檛 fall from grace so much as slide into a new kind of fame, the kind in which the fall itself was an essential part of the entertainment. The sleazy kind.

Lewinsky, more than anyone, bore the cost. She didn鈥檛 crave celebrity status; it was affixed to her. The affair, the dress and the endless denials weren鈥檛 just political moments. They were cultural markers, showing the world that no one, not even the president of the US, is exempt from unwelcome, permanent exposure.

[Ellis Cashmore鈥檚 鈥�鈥� is published by Bloomsbury.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.