Monica Lewinsky has said there was no question her boss Bill Clinton "took advantage" of her when he was US president.
But she said their affair was consensual and if there was any abuse involved, it came afterwards, when Mr Clinton's inner circle tried to discredit her and the president's opponents used her as a political pawn.
The former White House intern, now 40, wrote about her life in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In released excerpts, she said she was perhaps the first internet era scapegoat and wants to speak out on behalf of other victims of online humiliation.
Her willingness to step forward may come at an inopportune time as former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton considers running for president. Republicans have signalled they do not consider her husband's scandal from the late 1990s out of bounds in the realm of 2016-style political dialogue.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a likely Republican presidential contender, answered criticisms of the party's record on women's issues by saying in January that the last Democratic president engaged in "predatory behaviour" with a woman, Ms Lewinsky, who was 22 when her liaisons with Mr Clinton began in 1995.
Mr Clinton's lies about the relationship contributed to his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1998; the Senate acquitted him.
Ms Lewinsky wrote that she deeply regrets the affair and made a point of staying silent through several presidential campaigns to avoid becoming a distraction.
Now, she said, it was time to stop "tiptoeing around my past - and other people's futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet."
Invoking her headwear from endlessly repeated TV clips and the stained garment considered as evidence against Ms Clinton, she writes: "It's time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress."
But these were not her first public words on the scandal. Ms Lewinsky broke her silence in 1999 with a blockbuster interview with renowned US broadcaster Barbara Walters, gave several subsequent interviews and co-operated with author Andrew Morton on his book the same year, entitled Monica's Story.
"Sure, my boss took advantage of me," she wrote in Vanity Fair, "but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article