Monica Lewinsky has taken on a new role in society. The former disgraced White House intern has emerged from the shadows and will now be an advocate for bullied kids.

Monica Lewinsky was one of the first people to be bullied on the internet.

“I fell in love with my boss in a 22-year-old sort of a way,” Lewinsky said at the Forbes Under 30 Summit.

She added, “I was patient zero, the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the internet.”

Back in 1998 when the story broke and Monica Lewinsky‘s world, and the Clintons’ world, came crashing down, internet bullying was not near the problem that it is today. However, Lewinsky likens her situation to that of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide in 2010 after his intimate encounter with another man was caught on camera and put online.

#gratitude #overwhelmed #thankyou

— Monica Lewinsky (@MonicaLewinsky) October 21, 2014

Lewinsky says that she, too, could have been bullied to death and did contemplate suicide as a result of the harassment.

“I would go online, read in a paper or see on TV, people referring to me as: tramp, slut, whore. Frankly, I came close to disintegrating,” she admitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy7icJSTjL8

Monica Lewinsky says her mother took the Tyler Clementi news really hard.

“My mother was unusually upset by the story and I wondered why,” Lewinsky said.

She added, “Eventually it dawned on me: she was back in 1998, when I, too, might have been humiliated to death.”

So, what issue does Monica Lewinsky hope to tackle by speaking out for cyber-bullying victims?

Monica Lewinsky explains, “Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit, an empathy crisis, and something tells me that matters a lot more to most of us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaTFqttOpjE

Fighting cyber-bullying is really a great cause to lend her name to! Good luck to Monica Lewinsky.

What do you think of Monica Lewinsky’s involvement in the fight against cyber-bullies?