The ex-president claimed he had sex with Ms Lewinsky – who was just 22 at the time – to relieve the pressures of the job. He saw his intern as ‘something that will take your mind off it for a while’, he said. 

Bill Clinton claims he violated Monica Lewinsky with cigar to manage my anxieties.

Lewinsky now says that Bill’s kinky sex relationship with her was “a gross abuse of power,” attempting to paint herself as a #MeToo victim rather than a cheap floozy.

Leading the country, he said, makes you feel like ‘you’ve been in a 15 round prize fight that was extended to 30 rounds’. He added: ‘Everybody’s life has pressures and disappointments, terrors, fears of whatever.’ Having an affair, Mr Clinton said, was among ‘things I did to manage my anxieties for years’.

Former presidential candidate and secretary of state Mrs Clinton told the documentary she was ‘devastated’ by her husband’s infidelity. ‘I could not believe it. I was so personally just hurt and I can’t believe this, I can’t believe you lied,’ she said.

The four-part series ‘Hillary’ will be available to watch on Hulu from Friday. In one episode of the documentary, focused on the affair, Mr Clinton offers an apology to Ms Lewinsky, who in recent years has begun to publicly speak out about their relationship, saying her view of it changed during the #MeToo movement.

She struggled for years to fight her life being defined by the affair. The former president said he felt ‘terrible’ that her life had been ‘unfairly’ tainted by it.

Both Clintons – who were interviewed separately for the show – reflect on Mr Clinton’s initial lie that he had had sex with his intern, before admitting to the nation that they had in fact had a sexual relationship.

The relationship, and Mr Clinton lying about it during a deposition, led to his impeachment. He was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.