Monica Lewinsky Produced These Two Must-Watch Crime Series On Hulu

For years, whenever people brought up the name "Monica Lewinsky," it was as a punchline — especially if the person bringing her up happened to be former late night host Jay Leno, who got a frankly obscene amount of mileage out of jokes at Lewinsky's expense. In case you were in a coma during the 1990s or live in the desert without any technology, I'll explain, even though I'm not sure how you're reading this if it's the latter. Lewinsky was roughly 22 years old when she started working at the White House under then-President Bill Clinton, and from 1995 until 1997, the two had a clandestine affair. Clinton was ultimately impeached for lying under oath about the affair, and Lewinsky was shamed and mocked by bad faith actors and, frankly, bad people — despite the obvious power imbalance between her and former President Clinton.

Thankfully, Lewinsky is doing just fine these days. In fact, she's better than fine: Lewinsky has produced not one but two great crime shows on Hulu, including one that tells her own story in a different light.

In the years since the Clinton scandal, Lewinsky has become an activist after spending quite a lot of understandable time out of the public eye; in 2014, she emerged with an essay about her and Clinton's relationship in Vanity Fair and discussed what it's like to be shamed by the entire world. Besides speaking out about cyberbullying and public shaming, Lewinsky has also become a decently prolific producer. In 2021, she actually formed her own production company, Alt Endings Productions, and she's produced three projects as of this writing: the 2021 documentary "15 Minutes of Shame," the miniseries "Impeachment: American Crime Story" (which also came out in 2021), and "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," which began airing on Hulu in 2025.

Across 10 episodes that aired on FX in 2021, "Impeachment: American Crime Story" delves into every horrifying and troubling detail of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton's affair, as well as the ensuing fallout ... and the betrayal the real Lewinsky faced at the hands of a woman she briefly trusted, Linda Tripp. (Tripp, who tapped Lewinsky's phone lines and provided evidence in the eventual trial, is portrayed by Sarah Paulson, with Beanie Feldstein playing Lewinsky herself.) In an interview with Variety in September of that year, Lewinsky was refreshingly candid about why she chose to even work on the series about her life. 

"I don't make decisions to work on things that are connected to my past lightly," Lewinsky said at the time. "I'm very aware that they impact people, and that it brings up a difficult time for all of us. So, I put a lot of thought into it and it just seemed from the times we were living in, it would happen eventually." Plus, in 2019, Vanity Fair reported that showrunner Ryan Murphy made an undeniably great pitch. As Murphy apparently told Lewinsky, "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 godd*mn money."

Lewinsky has a natural affinity for storytelling because of, not in spite of, everything she's learned. "Because of my unique experience that I had — what it means to have someone take a story and tell it inaccurately, and to understand what it means to wrestle that narrative back — I'm really fascinated by storytelling," she told Variety interviewer Ramin Setoodeh. "This just felt like a natural fit. And anybody who knows me knows that I'm always having ideas."

Working on a series about one of the most infamously fraught times of one's life feels very daunting, and according to Lewinsky, it sure was. "It was very difficult," she shared before continuing:

"It was both fascinating and complicated, trying to balance what was best for the show versus how I felt about something personally. I struggled with that a lot. I got a lot of really great advice from some friends who are in the industry who helped me step back and be able to see what was important to understand about Monica the person vs. Monica the character."

Not every one of Murphy's shows knocks it out of the park, but I have to say that I do recommend "Impeachment," as does /Film's Chris Evangelista. It's important to hear the story from Lewinsky's perspective, and Feldstein and Paulson are truly phenomenal together on-screen; still, it can be a tough watch, so be prepared. So, what about Lewinsky's other big project as a producer?

In case you're also somehow unfamiliar with Amanda Knox, here's the gist. In 2007, while Knox was studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, her British roommate Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered, and Knox became the prime suspect. The whole thing is extremely complicated, which is why it merits a miniseries, but the bottom line seems to be that Italian authorities jumped the gun and pointed the finger at Knox over several perceived missteps by the 20 year old student; she was ultimately sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison but was later acquitted in 2015 and served under four. Like Monica Lewinsky, the real Knox is now an activist who works with the Innocence Project, and also like Lewinsky, she's taking control of her own story with "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," a Hulu miniseries where she's played by "Tell Me Lies" star Grace van Patten.

Speaking to NPR, Knox said that when she first took a public speaking arrangement in 2017, she was extremely nervous of "saying the wrong thing" — and met Lewinsky, who was participating in the same event. Knox told Mandalit del Barco on an episode of All Things Considered that she spent time with Lewinsky and learned quite a lot. "She was vilified and sexualized and made to feel like she was worthless and her only choice was to disappear," Knox continued. "All of those things are also what I went through."

As for Lewinsky, it's not particularly surprising that she felt a kinship with Knox as well. "I just had so much compassion for what she had gone through," Lewinsky told the outlet. "Look, I made a bad choice; Amanda did, you know, nothing. And I made a bad choice, which I fully own." Not only that, but as Lewinsky reminded listeners, this is also an all too common situation for women in the public eye. "Women, especially young women, are collateral damage, when internalized misogyny gets spewed out in the newspapers or in the news or is clickbait," Lewinsky noted. "That's important for us to remember."

Preconceived notions are something that both Lewinsky and Knox have dealt with for years, and as it turns out, even Lewinsky misunderstood Knox's story initially. "I had a very bonkers narrative in my head about what had actually happened," Lewinsky admitted. "There were so many things that I thought I knew, and I was wrong. And so I think people are going to be really surprised."

If you're ready to be surprised, "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox" is on Hulu, as is "Impeachment: American Crime Story.