Bill Clinton airs Lewinsky confession

Bill Clinton became embroiled in his notorious affair with Monica Lewinsky to help cope with the anxieties of office, the former US president has said in a new documentary about his wife. Clinton’s fling with Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old White House intern, nearly ended his presidency and rocked his marriage with Hillary, who later became US secretary of state. ‘‘I thought how I could think about the most stupid thing to do and do it,’’ Clinton says in the documentary, Hillary, which airs on Hulu this weekend. The former president says the pressure of the job made him stray. ‘‘You feel like you’re staggering around, you’ve been in a 15-round prize fight that was extended to 30 rounds and here’s something that will take your mind off it for a while, that’s what happens . . . everybody’s life has pressures and disappointments, terrors, fears.’’ At the time Clinton denied having ‘‘sexual relations’’ with Lewinsky, before confessing the affair. ‘‘I told her [Hillary] exactly what happened, when it happened . . . I said I have no defence, it’s inexcusable what I did.’’ In the four-part series, Hillary tells documentary makers: ‘‘I could not believe it. I was so personally just hurt. You get scarred up a little bit ... I didn’t want anything to do with him.’’ In the television programme, Clinton offers an apology to Lewinsky. ‘‘I feel terrible about the fact that Monica Lewinsky’s life was defined by it, unfairly I think,’’ he says.