Monica Lewinsky - Single, living with her mother and still struggling with her weight - but 'set to make $12m with a tell-all book about her affair with Clinton'
Stepping into the pouring rain, her thick hair swept up underneath a cap and rather bizarrely wearing sunglasses despite the gloomy New York weather, the woman went about her business without attracting a single gaze from passers-by.
The first picture of Monica Lewinsky, 39, in public for the first time in a year, paints a very different portrait from the young intern who achieved global notoriety after her sordid Oval Office affair with President Bill Clinton.
But her low-key life may not last much longer amid reports she is planning to pen an intimate, tell-all book about her affair with President Clinton that will plunge her right back into the spotlight.
Rarely seen: Monica Lewinsky out and about in New York yesterday, with her famous hair hidden under a cap and trying to remain incognito with sunglasses - despite the rain
She's been offered $12m to write the book, according to reports and it is said to include her intimate love letters to the ex-president and how he desired threesomes.
Is it revenge on her former flame? She certainly must have been aggrieved to watch as he managed to keep his family and career together in the fallout that followed the affair. But for Monica, she has never been able to emerge from its shadow and be known for anything other than that girl who wore that dress and had that affair.
There is no husband, as she dreamed of, no boyfriend, and no children, despite saying that she was 'romantic at heart' and that getting married and having kids was 'the most important thing to me.'
After numerous failed attempts to reinvent herself professionally, there is no sign of a successful career either.
MailOnline has learned that as she also continues her struggle with her weight, Monica now lives with her mother. She has moved out of the expensive apartment she rented for nearly a decade in the exclusive Archive building in Greenwich Village - where properties can cost up to $7,450-a-month for a one-bedroom apartment - and divides her time between New York and Los Angeles.
When she stays in New York, she lives with her mother Marcia Straus, who owns a penthouse in the city.
Sad: Monica Lewinsky clutches a hot drink while she stands alone on a Manhattan street
It also seems that she has regained the 31 pounds she once lost on the Jenny Craig diet program.
She was famously axed from the company just three months after signing up to a $1 million deal to be a spokeswoman, following criticism that she was not a good role model.
One told MailOnline: 'I think, if she had her dream, she would have lost 30 pounds, found a boy, moved to Westchester County, and had a family.'
Don't you know who I am? Monica cuts a much different figure than at 22
Monica has spent the past few weeks comforting her mother Marcia following the death of her beloved step-father, radio pioneer R.Peter Straus, who died at his New York home in August, aged 89.
He married Marcia, now 64, in 1989, after they were introduced by a mutual Washington friend in 1997 - just months before the scandal of Monica's liaison with President Clinton was made public in January 1998.
Mr Straus had known President Clinton for years, but remained extremely close to Monica, who fondly kept a picture of her mother and step-father in her apartment in a frame shamed like a giraffe.
In the shade: Monica Lewinsky dons her sunglasses in New York today
She said in an earlier interview: 'They've got a cute thing about giraffes - Peter gave my mom a giraffe brooch when that whole thing was going on, to remind her to look over the trees.'
Friends said it was probably cash, not just revenge that was driving her. The brunette, who turns 40 next July, still faces the hangover of massive legal costs relating to the Clinton affair and nolonger runs her line of self-designed handbags.
In 2005, she fled to London to study at the London School of Economics, receiving her Masters of Science in Social Psychology in December 2006.
At the time, her publicist said she had spent the years studying and 'staying away from the London social scene'.
She completed a thesis called: 'In Search of the Impartial Juror: An exploration of the third person effect and pre-trial publicity.'
Her longest relationship after the Clinton affair is still believed to be with filmmaker Mick Reed.
She rarely ventures out to high-profile events and was last seen in public nearly a year ago at an American Cancer Society Benefit, which her her good friend, The Good Wife actor Alan Cumming, hosted last December.
She has seen with Alan, 47, and his partner Grant Shaffer, on various occasions and was pictured on a lunch outing with the couple in 2009.
Pouting: Monica Lewinsky, President Bill Clinton and their now infamous kiss caught on camera
Indeed, she now spends her time staying with her mother and visiting her brother Michael Lewinsky and father Dr Bernard Lewinsky in Los Angeles, where she grew up.
Speaking to the National Enquirer, friends said the book will include never-before-seen love letters that Monica wrote to the president - some of which were so intimate she never sent them.
They reportedly detail her love for President Clinton, now 66, and how Monica, then 22, could make him much happier than his wife, Hillary, who the president called a 'cold fish'.
The book will also reportedly detail how he laughed about his non-existent sex life with Hillary - and said he thought he was not the only one looking for love outside their marriage.
Monica can describe how Bill went on and on about his insatiable desire for three-way sex, orgies and the use of sex toys of all kinds,' the friend added to the Enquirer.
Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton beam at the White House - before their affair was exposed in 1998
As well as the heartbreak she suffered after her relationship with President Clinton, Monica also plans to detail the pain of ending a pregnancy at the height of her liaison with the president, the source said.
She was carrying a child fathered by a Pentagon employee called 'Thomas', she revealed in an earlier biography written by Andrew Morton. 'That void has never been filled,' said the friend.
During her grand jury testimony against President Clinton in 1998, an immunity deal prevented her from exposing intimate details about their affair in the Morton expose that came out that year.
But that agreement expired in 2001, and when President Clinton published his autobiography My Life three years later, Monica felt betrayed by him all over again,' said the source.
But that agreement expired in 2001, and when President Clinton published his autobiography My Life three years later, Monica felt betrayed by him all over again,' said the source.
But one source insisted to Mail Online that, while she was exploring the option of writing a book, she wasn't out for revenge, adding: 'That's not like her'.
Smiling: The last time Monica was seen in public was in December, at a benefit for the American Cancer Society in New York, pictured alongside her friend Neil Mendoza
Sharing a joke: Monica and publisher Luke Janklow, the former boyfriend of heiress Jemima Khan. at the American Cancer Society Benefit
Though it has been 14 years since she claimed she had nine sexual encounters with the president, her presence still looms in the life of Clinton's post-presidency and Hillary's political career.
In what was an unfortunate and awkward schedule at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina last month, Monica's former rabbi - who publicly condemned President Clinton during the sex scandal - gave the benediction minutes after he took the stage.
Striding: Monica near her mother's New York penthouse
ABC News reported that the awkward pairing was likely overlooked by organizers because Rabbi David Wolpe is such a well-known figure in the Jewish community.
And in July, during a visit to Egypt as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was taunted by her husband's affair by protesters as they chanted 'Monica, Monica!'
Despite the rumours surrounding a book, a friend told the Huffington Post last month: 'Several publishers would love her to tell all, but she has no intention of doing so. She has been through enough already and all this happened 14 years ago. She has put it behind her and moved on with her life.
Monica in 2009 as she joined her good friend, actor Alan Cumming for lunch in New York's Soho
'She has nothing new to add to this painful chapter in her life.It’s time we all moved on.'
But as Monica attempts to get her life back on track, while President Clinton still remains the darling of the Democratic Party, it may be easier said than done.
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