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A collection of items once owned or gifted by Monica Lewinsky, including a black negligee and a letter signed by former President Bill Clinton, is being auctioned online, Nate D. Sanders Auctions announced Monday.
The 32-item collection was submitted by Monica Lewinsky’s one-time lover Andy Bleiler to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr during his investigation of the former White House intern’s relationship with Bill Clinton, said Laura Yntema, the auction manager.
Details of Monica Lewinsky’s affair with Andy Bleiler surfaced amid the probe that led to Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment by the House of Representatives on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
The 32-item collection was submitted by Monica Lewinsky’s one-time lover Andy Bleiler to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr
President Bill Clinton was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
Andy Bleiler, Monica Lewinsky’s former high school drama teacher, was married at the time of his five-year affair with the San Francisco native, Laura Yntema said.
It is believed Monica Lewinsky was friendly with the Bleilers in the 1990s, Laura Yntema added.
According to the lot description, the collection includes:
- a black floor-length negligee by City Culture
- three sealed and slightly crushed boxes of presidential M&Ms
- handwritten notes and greeting cards signed by Monica Lewinsky
- a letter typed on White House stationary signed by Bill Clinton
- several articles of casual clothing Monica Lewinsky gave to Andy Bleiler’s wife, Kate Nason
Monica Lewinsky’s infamous “blue dress” is not among the items listed for sale.
The lot is expected to nab between $25,000 and $50,000 when bidding concludes Thursday, Laura Yntema said.
Laura Yntema said she was not sure why the items were used as evidence during Kenneth Starr’s investigation into Bill Clinton’s misconduct.
Monica Lewinsky, 39, has largely avoided the media limelight after dominating tabloid headlines and late-night talk show jokes throughout the late 1990s.
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Barbara Eden bravely donned her iconic crop-top and harem pantaloons for the opening ceremony of the 21st Life Ball in Vienna Saturday.
Barbara Eden, 78, spent five years and 139 episodes starring on sixties sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie.
The evergreen TV legend still looked fabulous in the pink chiffon costume and tiny red velvet bolero.
Barbara Eden even made sure to wear her star-making role’s classic braided blonde ponytail wig, scarf hat, and silver kitten heels.
Originally designed by Gwen Wakeling with colors selected by Barbara Eden, the costume caused controversy with the censors due to the slightly exposed navel.
Barbara Eden first appeared on stage at Vienna’s City Hall alongside former Olympic swimmer Greg Louganis, pop star Fergie, and even organizer Gery Keszler.
She then reenacted her classic wish-conjuring arm and head nod, which magically brought out her new “Master” – former President Bill Clinton.
Barbara Eden donned her iconic costume for the opening ceremony of the 21st Life Ball in Vienna
Bill Clinton, 66, escorted Barbara Eden hand-in-hand up the tall velvet steps off the stage.
Before her big entrance, the aging beauty walked the glamorous event’s magenta carpet in a glittery gold gown featuring a thigh-high slit and matching bolero.
Rather than a gold purse, Barbara Eden clutched a replica of the purple genie’s bottle from her famous show.
The sitcom’s premise involved a 2,000-year-old genie being rescued by a handsome astronaut, who rubs her bottle after crash landing his shuttle on a beach.
Dallas star Larry Hagman, who passed away from throat cancer last November, played Captain Tony Nelson opposite the then 31-year-old starlet.
Meant to compete with the rival series Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie was created by Sidney Sheldon and aired on NBC in 1965.
The series, which was a mild hit at the time, became hugely popular during decades of syndication and the two spin-off reunion movies – neither of which starred Larry Hagman.
Barbara Eden even named her 2011 memoir after the series.
Jeannie Out of the Bottle detailed her two failed marriages and her “emotional breakdown” following the death of her only child, Matthew Ansara, from an accidental heroin overdose in 2001.
Before appearing on Jeannie, Barbara Eden made appearances on shows like I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Father Knows Best, and The Andy Griffith Show.
Barbara Eden’s most recent acting role was in the 2009 movie-of-the-week, Always and Forever alongside Dean McDermott for the Hallmark channel.
Former President Bill Clinton looked remarkably trim as he left a plush London restaurant on Thursday night.
Bill Clinton, 66, had been enjoying a dinner with actor Kevin Spacey at the upmarket Scott’s seafood restaurant in Mayfair, after giving a speech in London.
The former president, formerly known for his love of burgers, barbecue and junk food, changed to a strict vegan diet in 2010 after fears over his health.
Bill Clinton had quadruple bypass surgery in 2004 and then stent surgery in 2010.
He now follows a strict eating plan to improve his heart health.
Bill Clinton says he eats fruits, vegetables and beans, but no red meat, chicken or dairy.
His weight-loss was much commented-upon before his daughter Chelsea’s wedding, after which he said he had lost at least 24 pounds.
Former President Bill Clinton looked remarkably trim as he left a plush London restaurant
The first picture of Monica Lewinsky in public for the first time in a year, paints a very different portrait from the young intern who achieved global notoriety after her sordid Oval Office affair with President Bill Clinton.
But Monica Lewinsky’s low-key life may not last much longer amid reports she is planning to pen an intimate, tell-all book about her affair with President Clinton that will plunge her right back into the spotlight.
She’s been offered $12 million to write the book, according to reports and it is said to include her intimate love letters to the ex-president and how he desired threesomes.
Is it revenge on her former flame? She certainly must have been aggrieved to watch as he managed to keep his family and career together in the fallout that followed the affair. But for Monica Lewinsky, she has never been able to emerge from its shadow and be known for anything other than that girl who wore that dress and had that affair.
There is no husband, as she dreamed of, no boyfriend, and no children, despite saying that she was “romantic at heart” and that getting married and having kids was “the most important thing to me”.
After numerous failed attempts to reinvent herself professionally, there is no sign of a successful career either.
Monica Lewinsky also continues her struggle with her weight and now she lives with her mother. She has moved out of the expensive apartment she rented for nearly a decade in the exclusive Archive building in Greenwich Village – where properties can cost up to $7,450-a-month for a one-bedroom apartment – and divides her time between New York and Los Angeles.
When she stays in New York, she lives with her mother Marcia Straus, who owns a penthouse in the city.
It also seems that she has regained the 31 pounds she once lost on the Jenny Craig diet program.
Monica Lewinsky continues her struggle with her weight and now she lives with her mother
Monica Lewinsky, 39, was famously axed from the company just three months after signing up to a $1 million deal to be a spokeswoman, following criticism that she was not a good role model.
Monica Lewinsky has spent the past few weeks comforting her mother Marcia following the death of her beloved step-father, radio pioneer R. Peter Straus, who died at his New York home in August, aged 89.
He married Marcia, now 64, in 1989, after they were introduced by a mutual Washington friend in 1997 – just months before the scandal of Monica Lewinsky’s liaison with President Bill Clinton was made public in January 1998.
R. Peter Straus had known President Bill Clinton for years, but remained extremely close to Monica Lewinsky, who fondly kept a picture of her mother and step-father in her apartment in a frame shamed like a giraffe.
She said in an earlier interview: “They’ve got a cute thing about giraffes – Peter gave my mom a giraffe brooch when that whole thing was going on, to remind her to look over the trees.”
Friends said it was probably cash, not just revenge that was driving her. The brunette, who turns 40 next July, still faces the hangover of massive legal costs relating to the Clinton affair and nolonger runs her line of self-designed handbags.
In 2005, Monica Lewinsky fled to London to study at the London School of Economics, receiving her Masters of Science in Social Psychology in December 2006.
At the time, her publicist said she had spent the years studying and “staying away from the London social scene”.
She completed a thesis called In Search of the Impartial Juror: An exploration of the third person effect and pre-trial publicity.
Her longest relationship after the Clinton affair is still believed to be with filmmaker Mick Reed.
Monica Lewinsky rarely ventures out to high-profile events and was last seen in public nearly a year ago at an American Cancer Society Benefit, which her good friend, The Good Wife actor Alan Cumming, hosted last December.
She has seen with Alan Cumming, 47, and his partner Grant Shaffer, on various occasions and was pictured on a lunch outing with the couple in 2009.
Indeed, she now spends her time staying with her mother and visiting her brother Michael Lewinsky and father Dr. Bernard Lewinsky in Los Angeles, where she grew up.
Speaking to the National Enquirer, friends said the book will include never-before-seen love letters that Monica Lewinsky wrote to the president – some of which were so intimate she never sent them.
The letters reportedly detail her love for President Bill Clinton, now 66, and how Monica Lewinsky, then 22, could make him much happier than his wife, Hillary, who the president called a “cold fish”.
The book will also reportedly detail how he laughed about his non-existent sex life with Hillary Clinton- and said he thought he was not the only one looking for love outside their marriage.
“Monica can describe how Bill went on and on about his insatiable desire for three-way sex, orgies and the use of sex toys of all kinds,” the friend added to the Enquirer.
As well as the heartbreak she suffered after her relationship with President Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky also plans to detail the pain of ending a pregnancy at the height of her liaison with the president, the source said.
She was carrying a child fathered by a Pentagon employee called “Thomas”, she revealed in an earlier biography written by Andrew Morton.
“That void has never been filled,” said the friend.
During her grand jury testimony against President Bill Clinton in 1998, an immunity deal prevented her from exposing intimate details about their affair in the Morton expose that came out that year.
But that agreement expired in 2001, and when President Bill Clinton published his autobiography My Life three years later, Monica Lewinsky felt betrayed by him all over again.
Monica Lewinsky is reportedly set to write a tell-all book about her affair with former US President Bill Clinton – including her intimate love letters to the ex-president and how he had an insatiable desire for threesomes.
Monica Lewinsky, 39, reportedly wants revenge on Bill Clinton, who she believes escaped unscathed while she has never been able to shake the disgrace of their Oval Office trysts.
Friends claim publishers are scrambling to get their hands on the book, and after holding meetings, the former White House intern has learned she could get as much a $12 million if she recounts every tawdry detail.
While she has not yet secured a book deal, her apparent attempts to cash in on the affair could rattle the Clinton marriage – and wreck Hillary’s bid for the presidency in 2016.
Speaking to the National Enquirer, her friends said the memoir could even spark further health problems for the former president, who has undergone heart surgeries.
“Her book could be more than just revenge, it could kill him!” a source said.
Monica Lewinsky is set to write a tell-all book about her affair with Bill Clinton, including her intimate love letters to him
Her bids for a book deal will at least shake Bill Clinton – bringing him crashing down from the success he enjoyed after an energetic speech at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month.
“Monica has tried to move forward, but the nightmare of her affair with Bill still haunts her,” a friend told the National Enquirer.
“She’s facing 40 without a man in her life, and seething about the way her reputation was destroyed as the whole world watched.”
The book will also include never-before-seen love letters that Monica Lewinsky wrote to the president – some of which were so intimate she never sent them, another friend added.
They reportedly detail her love for Bill Clinton and how Monica Lewinsky, then just 22, could make him much happier than his wife, Hillary, who the president called a “cold fish”.
Bill Clinton also laughed about his nonexistent sex life with his wife – and said he thought he was not the only one looking for love outside their marriage.
“Monica can describe how Bill went on and on about his insatiable desire for three-way sex, orgies and the use of sex toys of all kinds,” the friend added.
As well as the heartbreak she suffered after her relationship with Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky also plans to detail the pain of ending a pregnancy at the height of her liaison with the president, the source said.
Monica Lewinsky was carrying a child fathered by a Pentagon employee called “Thomas”, she revealed in an earlier biography written by Andrew Morton.
“That void has never been filled,” said the friend.
She decided to develop the memoir after her sullied reputation meant she struggled to find work but realized she would get a generous offer for the book.
Monica Lewinsky is also writing it to get revenge on Bill Clinton, now 66, friends said.
“For years, Monica tried to protect Bill out of a misplaced sense of loyalty,” a source told the Enquirer.
“But she no longer feels that way, and her memoir is his worst nightmare.”
During her grand jury testimony against Bill Clinton in 1998, an immunity deal prevented her from exposing intimate details about their affair in the Morton expose that came out that year.
“But that agreement expired in 2001, and when Bill published his autobiography <<My Life>> three years later, Monica felt betrayed by him all over again,” said the source.
In the wake of the scandal, Monica Lewinsky became the centre of a political storm and gave a series of high-profile interviews.
But unable to escape the shake the reputation, she moved to England in 2005 where she earned her master’s degree and worked as a news correspondent for the UK’s Channel Five News.
Though it has been 14 years since Monica Lewinsky claimed she had nine sexual encounters with the president, her presence still looms in the life of Bill Clinton’s post-presidency and Hillary’s political career.
In what was an unfortunate and awkward schedule at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina earlier this month, Monica Lewinsky’s former rabbi – who publicly condemned Bill Clinton during the sex scandal – gave the benediction minutes after the former President took the stage.
ABC News reported that the awkward pairing was likely overlooked by organizers because Rabbi David Wolpe is such a well-known figure in the Jewish community.
And in July, during a visit to Egypt as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was taunted by her husband’s affair by protesters as they chanted “Monica, Monica!”.
Former US President Bill Clinton made an insensitive racial remark about Barack Obama while his wife battled him for the Democratic nomination vote, it was claimed today.
Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary battled Barack Obama in the 2008 primary campaign, is said to have remarked of the current president: “A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags.”
He allegedly made the insensitive remark to Senator Ted Kennedy in 2008, while trying to convince him to endorse Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, according to the New Yorker.
Writer Ryan Lizza said he heard about the comment from NBC newsman Tim Russert, who died in 2008.
Four years ago Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had clashed following Hillary’s failed bid for Presidency, which she lost to Obama.
Although Bill Clinton is said to have since given his backing to the current U.S. President, his remark is the latest in a series of apparent outbursts against Barack Obama.
Bill Clinton made an insensitive racial remark about Barack Obama while his wife battled him for the Democratic nomination vote
The ill-advised comment follows claims of another remark attributed to Bill Clinton in 2010, where he is said to have commented: “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”
The ex-President is quoted as having made the other remark in the book Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
The latest revelation comes just days before Bill Clinton is due to give a speech to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday night.
Further book claims last year said that Bill Clinton had previously branded Barack Obama “incompetent” and an “amateur”.
Bill Clinton is said to have torn into Barack Obama and branded him “incompetent” and that he “did not know how to be President”.
Bill Clinton added that Barack Obama “does not know how the world works”, according to an article in the Sunday Post by Edward Klein, author of The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.
He even urged Hillary Clinton to quit her job as U.S. Secretary of State and challenge him for the Democratic ticket as she knew how to do a better job of it. Bill Clinton’s team denied the remarks, branding Edward Klein as a well known liar.
Bill Clinton is yet to issue comment in response to the latest reported remarks.
The rocky relationship between the 42nd President and the current President has been closely scrutinized since the aggressive primaries in 2008, where Hillary Clinton was running for President.
During that contest, Bill Clinton made headlines for calling the premise of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opposition to the Iraq War, “the biggest fair tail I’ve ever seen”.
But despite their often tense relationship, the President buried the hatchet with charismatic Bill Clinton earlier this year by asking him to be a leading star of his re-election campaign.
Barack Obama’s team will likely be keeping a close eye on Bill Clinton as he takes to the North Carolina stage this week, praying that he causes no further cracks in the party for the Republicans to seize on.
Bill Clinton, 66, said in July that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s business career was “sterling” and criticized the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s background at the private equity firm Bain Capital.
He caused headaches for the Obama administration again when he said he favored the extension of all of George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Barack Obama has campaigned on repealing the cuts for the richest Americans.
A TV biography of the former U.S. President Bill Clinton claims that he was already a huge hit with the ladies during his initial bid for governorship in his home state of Arkansas in the 1970’s.
Former senior aides said that women were “literally mesmerized” and swarmed around Bill Clinton “like flies to honey”.
Bill Clinton’s appeal only grew by the time he became president – during which time he admitted he had been forced to “shut down my body” to avoid multiple indiscretions.
The disclosures were made in the forthcoming PBS documentary Clinton in which Bill Clinton’s former staffers speak for the first time about their sense of betrayal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998.
Long before that, however, Bill Clinton’s sexual appetite was causing problems.
According to the documentary, Bill Clinton’s political team realized it was a stumbling block during his failed run for Congress in 1974 in his home state of Arkansas.
Campaign manager Paul Fray said: “You got to understand that at one time there was at least 25 women per day coming through there trying to find him and I’d tell them he was out on the road.
“Lord it was bad. Bad, bad bad, bad bad.”
Marla Crider, who worked with Bill Clinton in Arkansas and had an affair with him, describes women as being “literally mesmerized”.
She says: “It was like flies to honey.
“He needed that, he needed that kind of adoration. I don’t think there was any question that Hillary was hurt whether it was me, or anyone else.”
In the forthcoming PBS documentary Clinton, Bill Clinton's former staffers speak for the first time about their sense of betrayal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998
Among those interviewed is Betsey Wright, Bill Clinton’s trusted political aide, who made a crucial intervention in his career in 1987 the day before he was due to announce his run for presidency.
Betsey Wright confronted Bill Clinton with a list of his previous girlfriends who he had to deal with.
Writer Gail Sheely said: “Just the day before the press conference he was going to announce that he was going to run, Betsey Wright, his ferociously protective campaign manager, sat him down with a list of names of women and went through one after the other
“How many times? Where did you meet her? How likely is she to talk?”
Bill Clinton said for each name that “she’ll never say anything”, but Betsey Wright replied: “But you don’t know that!”
Betsey Wright supposedly told Bill Clinton: “The problem is we’re not just talking about you, we’re talking about your wife, we’re talking about your child.
“She said I don’t think you can run.”
Betsey Wright tells the documentary: “It became clear it was not the time for him to do it. This was not the time.”
By the time he got to the White House in 1992, however, Bill Clinton appeared to be having even more difficulty controlling himself.
And when Monica Lewinsky arrived as one of his interns, his self-control evaporated completely.
Ken Gormley, a legal expert working in the White House, tells the documentary that there were “almost these sparks flying between them from the first moment when they saw each other”.
And when the affair became public Betsey Wright says that his staff was deeply upset because he had lied to them and lied “to a lot of people”.
On of Bill Clinton’s closest advisers, Dick Morris, tells the documentary: “When the Lewinsky scandal broke the president paged me and I returned the call.
“He said: <<Ever since I go here to the White House I’ve had to shut my body down, sexually I mean, but I screwed up with this girl. I didn’t do what they said I did but I may have done so much that I can’t prove my innocence.>>
“I said to him that the problem that presidents have is not the sin, it’s the cover-up and you should explore just telling the American people the truth.
“He said: <<Really, do you think I could do that?>>
“I said let me test it, let me run a poll, so I took a poll… and I called him back and I said they will forgive the adultery, but they won’t easily forgive that you lied.”
Bill Clinton, now 65, disregarded his advice and continued to conceal his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
In the end Bill Clinton was impeached but acquitted.
The former president did however remain very popular and left office with a 65% approval rating, the highest exiting poll out of any U.S. President.
The documentary also features fascinating color about the Clinton White House with aides describing his first year as “chaos”.
The West Wing resembled a fraternity house with pizza boxes littering the floor as bullish young aides who did not even wear ties wandered in and out of meetings as and when they liked.
Summing up Bill Clinton’s presidency, U.S. journalist David Maraniss, tells the documentary: “People always try to separate the good from the bad in Clinton and say that, if he had not done certain things, he would have been a great president.
“But you can’t do that. Those were his major characteristics.”
Bill Clinton’s former press secretary Dee Dee Myers adds: “How many second chances does a person deserve? Clinton’s view is as many second chances as a person is willing to take.”
Hillary Clinton also features prominently in the film and she is credited with being the “mastermind” of reviving his career in its early days.
When Penthouse model Gennifer Flowers claimed to have had a 12-year affair with her husband, Bill Clinton “brought him back from the dead” with a robust TV interview in which she famously said she was not going to “stand by my man” like the Tammy Wynette song.
Bill Clinton political advisor Carol Willis says: “Bill Clinton is a smart guy, a very smart guy but he will tell you that Hillary is much smarter than he is, she’s much tougher than he is, she’s more of a pragmatist.”
Clinton documentary premieres on four consecutive nights from Monday, February 20 at 10:15 p.m. on PBS
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Bill Clinton is known as a vegan now, though he was once a ravenous diner with an insatiable hunger, Roland Mesnier, the former White House pastry chef, revealed.
Roland Mesnier described former President Bill Clinton’s appetite as “scary” saying:
“He could eat five or six pork chops in a day.”
The former White House pastry chef added that his kitchen staff “had to be ready”.
Bill Clinton is known as a vegan now, though he was once a ravenous diner with an insatiable hunger, Roland Mesnier, the former White House pastry chef, revealed
Roland Mesnier, who has been making pastries for presidents for a quarter century, told the Washingtonian that cooking for the president was no easy feat.
For one thing, Bill Clinton is allergic to both flour and chocolate. For a pastry chef, this could be frustrating, Roland Mesnier said.
The former chef remembered one night he crafted a strawberry cake for the president. He said Bill Clinton devoured half of the cake – without help from Hillary or Chelsea – and then wanted a slice or two in the morning.
“No one could find the cake,” Roland Mesnier said.
“Clinton was pounding on the table and shouting, <<I want my goddamned cake.>>”
When the missing cake was nowhere to be found, there was only one conclusion to be made.
“We decided (Vice President Al) Gore must have eaten it,” Roland Mesnier told the Washingtonian.
Roland Mesnier served everyone from President Carter to President George W. Bush, but left before his second term.
The French chef is the author of three books, including his memoir, All the Presidents’ Pastries.
Bill Clinton, who is now 65, said his vegan diet is serving him well.
“I like the vegetables, the fruits, the beans, the stuff I eat now,” Bill Clinton said.
“It’s turning a ship around before it hits the iceberg, but I think we’re beginning to turn it around.”
While in office Bill Clinton, who has a family history of heart disease, was well known for gorging on fatty snacks like doughnuts, burgers and steaks as he worked long hours in the Oval Office.
But following a quadruple bypass in 2004 he has had to adjust his diet and lower his cholesterol intake.
Bill Clinton had to make more changes last year when doctors implanted two stents to open one of the veins from that surgery.
After taking advice from U.S. diet guru Dr. Dean Ornish, Bill Clinton appeared noticeably thinner last August at daughter Chelsea’s wedding, where he revealed he had lost 20 lbs.
Bill Clinton told CNN that he realized he had been playing “Russian Roulette” with his body because even though he had cut down on some unhealthy foods, he was still taking in too much cholesterol.
