John Oliver got emotional remembering the trust and bravery Monica Lewinsky showed appearing on “Last Week Tonight” back in 2019.
On Tuesday’s episode of “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky,” Oliver got choked up when Lewinsky thanked him for having her on the show. She said it was instrumental in her reclamation journey and allowed her to tell her story to the host’s younger crowd who may not know her as well.
“I’m also very, very grateful that you did it, because I know that it was not an easy decision to make,” Oliver said. “As part of that process that you’re clearly going through, a TED talk and a Vanity Fair op-ed is precise, right? And it’s all on your terms. You can get word-for-word, moment-to-moment. You can control all of it.”
He continued: “So I was extra grateful that you were willing to put yourself in the position where you would be under less control. And I do think it was a massive act of trust on your part. And I am very grateful that you thought we were worthy of that trust, because I know your trust had been broken in the past.”
In the “Last Week Tonight” segment, Oliver also admitted to cracking jokes at Lewinsky’s expense in the past. On the podcast, Lewinsky said that the host admitting to that and apologizing helped bring them closer together.
“I hadn’t heard the jokes, thankfully, but whatever jokes I have heard — when someone takes responsibility and apologizes, you actually end up sort of… it’s not just back to neutral where you were,” she said. “It’s more positive because there’s a value.”
The 2019 segment of “Last Week Tonight” Lewinsky appeared on focused on public shaming. Oliver apologized for the jokes he’d made in the past that aged like milk and called out late-night hosts – specifically Jay Leno – for how they covered the scandal.
“Those jokes have not dated well in any sense of the word,” he said. “And they’re pretty rough, especially coming from a guy who, just this week complained about late-night TV, saying he’d ‘like to see a bit of civility come back’, you know, like that time when he did a bit with a fake book about Lewinsky called The Slut in the Hat, and if that’s what he means by civility then I offer my new book Oh, the Places You Can Go F–k Yourself, Jay Leno!”
