WASHINGTON — Monica S. Lewinsky, insecure girl from Beverly Hills turned most notorious woman in the world, is trolling for a new life, and by many accounts the options could be limitless if she chooses carefully.
From book deals to centerfolds, from onetime television interviews to modeling gigs, offers apparently are pouring in to Lewinsky as she begins calculating how to market her unsought notoriety. For whatever the resume-poor 25-year-old chooses to do now is likely to shape her entire future, say public relations and entertainment experts who invariably compare her to past "it girls"--the Judith Campbell Exners and Donna Rices who had the chance to turn their 15 minutes into a career.
As Lewinsky's spokeswoman, Judy Smith, says after the former White House intern's final appearance before the grand jury investigating her liaison with the president, the young woman is "looking forward to beginning the process of rebuilding her life."
But the reconstruction process has to be hampered by all that the world has come to know about her sex life--with even more excruciatingly intimate details expected today and the possibility that she could become known as the woman who helped destroy an American president.
Still, the notoriety that has shattered Lewinsky's life also has put her in a league of her own. Right now her best commodity is her scarcity. The world has yet to even hear her voice or evaluate her unedited story. And that apparently is purposeful.
Since cutting an immunity deal with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, Lewinsky has been legally constrained from publicly discussing her entanglement with the president. But her silence is more a strategy than a muzzle, according to sources. She has decided to wait out the hysterical political climate and legal wranglings, including possible impeachment hearings, so that when she does break her silence her voice won't be lost in the partisan din and will work to further her best interests.
In the meantime, she and Smith are pitching and entertaining offers--including lucrative bookdeals and made-for-TV movies.
They are also fending off a daily barrage of calls, sometimes 25 or 30, about rumors, disinformation and outright lies concerning what Lewinsky is up to. One day she is vacationing in Australia. (Not true.) The next day she is going on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives." (Not true.) And then Friday an Italian designer in Milan announced that Lewinsky would make a runway appearance wearing a blue two-piece suit at the October fashion shows and give half of her $470,000 pay to cancer research. (No truth to any of it, and the publicity stunt of this designer's last show was a "condom dress" in tight, skin-color latex.)
