Monica inks producing deal with 20th TV

Monica Lewinsky has found her own Alt Ending. 20th Television has signed the Vanity Fair contributing editor and her aptly named production company to a first-look producing deal. The news comes as Lewinsky is prepping the latest installment of the American Crime Story anthology series, Impeachment: American Crime Story, for which she serves as a hands-on producer.

As its title suggests, Impeachment will chronicle the events that led to the first impeachment of a sitting president in over a century. Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein stars as the former White House intern, with a star-studded cast that also includes Clive Owen (as Bill Clinton), Edie Falco (as Hillary Clinton) and Sarah Paulson (as Linda Tripp). The series is set to premiere Sept. 7 on FX.

“As our team has gotten to know Monica through her involvement with our upcoming edition of American Crime Story, we’ve been very impressed with her instincts as a producer, and her desire to bring provocative, untold stories to the screen. She is formidable and passionate about the work, and we’re hopeful this first look deal leads to many successful projects together,” 20th TV president Karey Burke said in a statement released Monday.

In recent years, Lewinsky has successfully rebranded herself as a writer, speaker and activist, a shift that began with a widely praised 2014 essay for Vanity Fair, in which she re-examined her personal experiences at the center of the 1998 media maelstrom and detailed her own struggles in its aftermath. Her 2015 Ted Talk, The Price of Shame, has been viewed nearly 20 million times.

In the years since, Lewinsky’s advocacy work has centered on creating a safer social media environment and often addresses topics including digital resilience, privacy and cultivating compassion online. Among her other upcoming projects: the HBOMax doc 15 Minutes of Shame, which explores what the platform has dubbed the “public shaming epidemic” in our culture. Lewinsky serves as an exec producer.

“I’m interested in storytelling that is entertaining, thought-provoking and emotion-stirring — that moves a conversation forward by exploring the human condition from an unexpected lens. That’s what excites me about forming Alt Ending Productions and working with 20th Television,” Lewinsky added in a statement of her own. “Having had my own story hijacked for many years, I’m very interested in the voices or perspectives we historically don’t hear from or see. They’re brimming with untapped potential. I look forward to working with and learning from visionary women like Karey Burke and [20th exec vp development] Carolyn Cassidy and owe a special debt to Ryan Murphy for championing me as a producer.”