Monica Lewinsky’s decision to narrate her illness in real time is less about COVID and more about authorship. For years, her name was shorthand for scandal, a cultural reflex that erased her inner life. Now, instead of vanishing into silence, she writes herself back into focus: achy, witty, anxious, still here. That choice refuses the lazy comfort of the meme and demands that we see a whole human being where we once accepted a caricature.
Her voice from isolation becomes a quiet act of defiance against a world that prefers women as symbols, not subjects. She doesn’t ask for pity; she asks for context. By naming the irony without letting it define her, she proves that survival isn’t just staying alive—it’s wresting back the narrative, insisting that your story cannot be reduced to the worst thing that ever happened to you.
