Monica Lewinsky opens up about White House sex scandal in new interview

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Monica Lewinsky says she was once the most humiliated woman in the world.

Now she's opening up about the days when her name was screamed across headlines tying her to a White House sex scandal with former President Bill Clinton.

"That was one of the worst days of my life," Lewinsky said. "I was a virgin to humiliation of that level until that day."

It's been 17 years since Lewinsky went from anonymous White House intern to focus of a sex scandal that threatened to bring down a president.

Now, for the first time in a decade, she's speaking out in a National Geographic documentary.

She describes being grilled by FBI agents about her affair with the most powerful man in the world.

"I don't even know how accurately to describe the shock and the trauma and the fear. They threatened me with 27 years in jail or I had to cooperate. The third option, really, was I looked out the window and thought 'I'll jump'", Lewinsky said.

It was the dawn of the digital age in news, and the scandal exploded across the Internet, with the online Drudge Report leading the way.

"It was just a strange circumstance where reporters in Washington were afraid to report the story," said Matt Drudge.

Lewinsky was being hounded at every turn by reporters and photographers. President Clinton, testifying under oath in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, denied an affair.

Clinton survived impeachment, but Lewinsky, deeply shamed, would become a virtual recluse for years.

Now she is re-emerging to "take back the narrative of my life," as she put it. "It's time to move forward."