Monica Lewinsky Has Some Advice for That HBO Max Intern After Test Email Goes Viral

Monica Lewinsky offered her advice and support to an HBO Max intern after they accidentally sent an email to thousands of subscribers.

By Cydney Contreras Jun 18, 2021 10:52 PMTags

In the words of Hannah Montana, "Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days."

This Friday, June 18, thousands of people woke up with a blank email from HBO Max in their inbox. According to the dozens of screenshots shared on Twitter, the subject read "Integration Test Email # 1" while the body of the notified the recipient, "This template is used by integration tests only."

Though some jumped to the conclusion that they had received a spam email, or worse, a phishing scam, the HBO Max Help account set the record straight on Friday afternoon: "We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we're helping them through it."

Yes, the Internet can be a dark, evil place, but most responses were wildly positive and encouraging of said intern. Numerous people shared their work blunders in an act of solidarity, but one particular person's tweet stood out: Monica Lewinsky.

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Monica is known as the former mistress of President Bill Clinton, who she happened to meet when she was an intern for the White House. Their relationship was just one of the reasons why the President was impeached in 1998, as he famously said that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

Karwai Tang/Getty Images

Monica faced much backlash for her involvement in the scandal, but she came away from the experience with a better understanding of the world and how to navigate complicated situations like this. So, she advised the HBO Max intern, "dear intern: it gets better. ps. don't wear a beret for awhile, k?"

For those confused about the fashion advice, Monica wore a beret in one of the few photos she's in with President Clinton and she's always said she regrets choosing that accessory, particularly because women made her into a Halloween costume and those costumes almost always include a beret. 

She also used her previous outfits as a metaphor for that time in her life, writing in 2014, "It's time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress." In other words, it's time to move on.

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