Thinner Linda Tripp Resurfaces, Admits She Manipulated Monica Over Bill
She's back!
Linda Tripp, who betrayed her friend Monica Lewinsky and made the former intern's affair with President Bill Clinton a shocking public scandal in the 1990s, has resurfaced.
She has admitted to manipulating Lewinsky in a new interview.
The ex-government worker spoke out for a Fox News episode of their show Scandalous, which covers all of Bill and wife Hillary Clinton's alleged misdeeds through the years.
Looking much leaner than in her big news heyday, Tripp, now 68, still is in the role of mean girl, dishing on Bill and Monica.
In a preview clip for Sunday night's Scandalous episode, Tripp recalled how she got her friend Lewinsky to confess to her affair with Bill almost two years after she first heard rumors about the White House intern.
"It was tough making the decision to manipulate her at the end because I had to have her recreate all I had heard for a year-and-a-half, and it was enough to curl your hair," Tripp, who worked for both the George Bush the first and Bill Clinton administrations.
"I literally had to lead her down the garden path and get her to sort of reiterate everything that had come before. And that was tough."
Starry-eyed Lewinsky's torrid sexual relationship with President Clinton led her to believe they actually had a future together, Tripp remembered.
The former bureaucrat said it was tough to expose the affair because, "that was hard to do knowing that it would break her heart, burst the bubble, destroy the fantasy of their growing old together."
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Lewinsky began sharing sexual play with the President in November 1995, when she was just 22 and Bill was 49 and married to First Lady Hillary.
In January 1998, the affair became public after Tripp gave audio tapes she had made of Lewinsky admitting to her relationship to prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Starr had been investigating other Clinton scandals at the time, including the Whitewater controversy and Bill's alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones.
Bill, now 71, famously told the nation back then, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
But after the intern's blue dress allegedly had his semen on it, the President later admitted to the affair. Bill claimed his definition of "sex" differed from that of others (the two reportedly never had intercourse but indulged in other sexual acts).
Lewinsky is now 44 and never married or had children. She blasts TV shows about her liaison with Bill and speaks out against bullying.
Tripp will reveal more on the Lewinsky affair on Scandalous, airing Sunday night, February 11, at 8pm EST on Fox News.
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