Monica Lewinsky, one of the show producers for "Impeachment: American Crime Story", insisted that writers include a scene depicting her flashing a thong at then-US President Bill Clinton at the time of their White House affair, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The screenwriter team was at first afraid that re-enacting the scene would "retraumatize" Lewinsky, but the former White House intern greenlighted the "thong-flashing" section.
“Listen, I would’ve loved to have been really selfish and said, ‘That’s great that you guys think we don’t have to show that, fantastic,’ but I’m incredibly experienced in understanding how people see this story,” Lewinsky told The Hollywood Reporter.
She explained that she felt she would be blamed for the absence of the scene in the show, regardless of whether or not she was on the production team.
“So, ultimately, I felt two things: One was that I shouldn’t get a pass because I’m a producer; and two, that it was unfair to the team and to the project because it would leave everybody vulnerable", she said.
Initially, Lewinsky shared the intimate detail in 2018, saying that she exposed her thongs to Clinton in 1995 in the middle of a government shutdown.
Lewinsky became a part of the production team of the show after Ryan Murphy, an FX producer, urged her to reconsider her concern and pledged that the show would be about the affair between her and a president, from the perspective of the women involved.
Despite the spicy topics raised in the show, "Impeachment", according to executive producer Nina Jacobson, will be "mindful of what we show when, and why, and what we don’t show, and why".
The show is scheduled to be released on 7 September, starring Beanie Feldstein as Lewinsky and Clive Owen as US President Bill Clinton.