Queer TV impresario Ryan Murphy has announced his next collaborator: Monica Lewinsky.
Lewinsky will join Murphy to produce the next season of American Crime Story titled American Crime Story: Impeachment. The anthology series will retrace the story of the Lewinsky Affair, as the scandal has become known, and feature actors from Murphy’s usual stock company. Both Sarah Paulson and Annaleigh Ashford, who have worked on previous seasons of ACS, will return to the show as Linda Tripp and Paula Jones, respectively. Queer actress Beanie Feldstein of Booksmart will play the role of Lewinsky.
Related: Ryan Murphy & Netflix have a huge queer announcement
Monica Lewinsky became a household name in the mid-1990s when her friend Linda Tripp leaked news that Lewinsky had engaged in an affair with then-President Bill Clinton while working as a White House intern. Lewinsky, only 22 at the time, endured a firestorm of media scrutiny and crude jokes as she was called before Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr. The details of the sexual relationship between Lewinsky and Clinton became the subject of The Starr Report and served as grounds for Clinton’s impeachment.
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Ryan Murphy had considered doing a series on Lewinsky as early as 2017 based on Jeffery Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. The Hollywood Reporter also reports that Murphy later reconsidered his decision, telling Lewinsky at a party that he would not do the show without her. “I told her, ‘Nobody should tell your story but you, and it’s kind of gross if they do. If you want to produce it with me, I would love that; but you should be the producer and you should make all the goddamn money,'” Murphy says.
American Crime Story: Impeachment will debut in September 2020, just before the 2020 Presidential election.
HankHarris
nope.
DomitoJo
This is great news!! 🙂
TheGregoryProject
yawn.
TheBigOne
I’ll only watch if they show what he did with the pizza and the cigar(s) otherwise, meh. I also want to see how exactly she got some of his DNA on her dress…………..
Kangol2
First, when Lewinsky and Clinton had their consensual affair, she was not an intern. It began afterwards, so please, don’t propagate false stories. Also, why would Monica Lewinsky subject herself to this renewed, humiliating attention? Does she need the money that badly? Also, did Ryan Murphy have a falling out with Hillary Clinton or something? I mean, way to tear open the psychic wounds and trauma!
Ronbo
Ronbo
So… cheating on your spouse is “OK” to you? I’ll remind you of that when you are thrown aside for a newer shiny object. Or even worse, get STDs, depression and divorce.
It’s sad when politicians violate their vows to the public, let alone, their wives! As my Democratic-voting mother said at the time, “If they will cheat on someone that they love, they will do much worse to those that they loathe”. Clinton pushed, passed and signed DADT and DOMA and the Crime Bill and was working on cutting Social Security with Newt. Thank God Monica crawled in and screwed up Clinton’s third-way into total Republican policy.
Neoliberals are only Republicans in sheeps clothing hiding out in the right-wing of the Democratic party.
Kangol2
@Ronbo, you sound unhinged. Clinton did NOT push for DADT or DOMA. You just pulled that out of your rear end. He and every other neoliberal politician, from both parties, has sought to harm Social Security, and it wasn’t the Lewinsky scandal, but grass roots protesters and the politicians who were forced to listen that stopped him from doing so, just as they stopped George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Moreover, I don’t care about other consenting adults’ sex lives if they are not hypocrites; it’s for them and their spouses/partners/loved ones to deal with. Please save your psychological projections about STDs for your psychiatrist and minister, since you sound like Church Lady on steroids.
I note that you are strangely silent on the Whore of Babylon who currently occupies the White House. Talk about a cheater, liar AND traitor, all rolled into one! Do you agree with him, because he’s also called for slashing Social Security, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. AND the ACA and most other programs to help the vast majority of Americans, especially poor and working-class ones, while also transferring, through his GOP-fueled tax scheme, BILLIONS more into the pockets of the already rich? Are you cool with that? Or the homophobes he’s appoint to the courts?
Ronbo
“20 years ago, Bill Clinton signed Defense of Marriage Act”
Headline published in the Washington Times (actual link awaiting moderation)
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Was Announced by Bill Clinton 25 Years Ago”
Headline published by Fortune awaiting moderation.
If you don’t remember the betrayal, you can google the facts. No need to demonstrate your ignorance AND your lack of a moral center. Marriage is something we worked HARD to achieve, a monumental achievement.
Check out my DISCUS to learn of my disgust for tRump.
PoetDaddy
This disgusts me. It is without doubt a low point in an obviously successful career for Murphy, although American Crime Story certainly got worse with each series. I have no interest whatsoever in seeing this tawdry episode rehashed and I particularly despise Monica Lewinsky and her and the politically motivated “friends” who put her up to it. I thought she had already hit her bottom, but apparently she is striving for new depths.
I will not be watching this sensationalized trash.
Ronbo
It was Clinton who was “up” for it.
david-tullis
I find Monica Lewinsky to be totally disgusting. This is definitely not a show that I will watch.
OzJosh
Great idea. With any luck it will play out in concurrence with the Trump impeachment.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Why the fcuk would Murphy give more fodder to those who defend this current abhorrent administration dredging up ancient history to deflect criticism of the horrific anti Gay actions and rhetoric constantly streaming from Washington!???
Paulie P
one day she is done talking about this then next she sings like a bird… 2 years later i never want to talk about it again 3 minutes later she sits down for an interview… the wind blows and the weather changes and she is appalled that it is brought up again and she has put it behind her then she has a tv special about it… she is done and then announces I will produce a series about it…..she blew a guy 20 plus years ago…. who hasn’t who didn’t!
Cam
Every 3 or 4 years she comes out with a big article in Vanity Fair or some other paper, talking about how she doesn’t want to talk about the Clinton years anymore….only to then go on for multiple pages about them. She also made news not that long ago for walking out of an interview when somebody DARED to bring up Clinton because “That’s in her past and it is rude to bring it up”………And yet here she is again.
She should either be true to her word and not talk about it, or embrace it and stop pretending she doesn’t want to talk about it only to come running to any reporter who offers lunch and a byline.