- The “Impeachment” showrunner said the thong scene closely follows the real-life incident.
- Sarah Burgess told Insider that she was working with Monica Lewinsky to get the details right.
- For the rest of the series, Burgess said he researched and made “creative decisions.”
“Impeachment: American Crime Story” lead writer and showrunner Sarah Burgess said the thong scene in the series is based “very closely” on what Monica Lewinsky told her in real life.
The final season of the FX anthology follows the dismissal of Clinton (played by Clive Owen) and the aftermath of her 18-month affair with then-young Lewinsky, 22 (played by Beanie Feldstein).
The 10-part season also represents a moment in November 1995, when Lewinsky was reported to have thrown his thong at Clinton while the two were in the White House, shown in the last episode aired on Tuesday.
Burgess told Insider that he worked very closely with Lewinsky (a producer of the season) to write the scene involving the older politician.
Burgess explained that the script for the second episode initially did not have the intermittent scene. When Brad Simpson, the executive producer, contacted Lewinsky to think about the script, the former White House employee told Simpson that the scene should be included. Simpson then brought Lewinsky’s notes to Burgess.
“So I either talked to her or wrote a description of what happened, and I actually wrote in a script very closely based on what she described specifically,” Burgess told the Insider about the infamous moment.
She added: “The Starr Report produced a lot of events, they sounded very wild, which, you know, it’s sex. Of course it is. At the same time, they made it sound more aggressive than it was. Talking to she, I just made sure that on my script page, it was really what she described because I wanted to do it right. “
Lewinsky previously said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that setting aside the intermittent scene would be “unfair to the team and the project because it would leave everyone vulnerable” to criticism.
Burgess told Insider that while writing the scripts for “Impeachment,” he did his own research to “grab all the information” and then make “creative decisions” for each character.
The thong scene was the only case in which the script matched what Lewinsky said.
Burgess said his investigation into “Impeachment” involved reading 56 books, FBI and Justice Department documents, and Special Counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation into the events surrounding Clinton’s removal.
“A lot of the pandemic gave me time to read them all very thoroughly,” Burgess said.
He added, “There’s never too much research for me. I just took all of that and then I made my decision to write based on the character I focused on.”
“Impeachment: American Crime Story” airs Tuesdays on FX at 10 p.m. ET.