What did Monica Lewinsky say about Beyonce in Vanity Fair? Singer's Partition song lyrics explored

American activist Monica Lewinsky criticized Beyonce for the controversial use of her name in her 2013 song Partition. The Cowboy Carter artist wrote lyrics referencing Monica Lewinsky's alleged affair with former United States President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

In the first verse of the song, Queen Bey describes a sexual encounter in the song by drawing a comparison with Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. She describes it as:

“Now my mascara running, red lipstick smudged / Oh he so h*rny, yeah he want to f**k / He popped all my buttons, and he ripped my blouse / He Monica Lewinsky-ed all on my gown."”

When Beyonce removed a word from her Renaissance album in 2022 after activists pointed out that she had used an ableist term, Monica Lewinsky raised the topic of removing her reference from the Partition song through a tweet.

“uhmm, while we’re at it… #Partition,” she wrote in the tweet.

In fact, Lewinsky talked about her problems with the lyrics of Partition in a 2014 op-ed that she wrote for Vanity Fair. She accepted that many rappers and artists in the past have referenced her alleged affair with Clinton while talking about sexual innuendos.

However, she also suggested a change in narrative for Beyonce's song:

“Miley Cyrus references me in her twerking stage act, Eminem raps about me, and Beyoncé’s latest hit gives me a shout-out. Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d,’ ” wrote the 51-year-old.

Her 2022 tweet about demanding a lyric change met with intense backlash from fans of Queen Bey. However, Lewinsky explained that she was not 'attacking' Beyonce but merely stating her opinion.

Furthermore, she explained that she had been having a problem with the lyrics since 2014 and it didn't just crop up in 2022.

"newsflash: always consider YOUR first time hearing something doesn’t necessarily mean it is the first time it’s been said. (this has been a good reminder for me, too.)," tweeted Lewinsky.

Co-written and Co-produced by Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Jerome 'J-Roc' Harmon, Mike Dean, and Dwane 'Key Wane' Weir, Partition was one of the major chart-topping songs of her self-titled album.

It peaked at number 23 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and spent a total of twenty-one weeks on the chart.

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Beyonce removed an allegedly ableist word from her Renaissance track after outrage

In July 2022, Queen Bey released her seventh studio album called Renaissance and it went on to break records and become one of the most successful and chart-busting albums of the singer/ songwriter's career. However, Queen Bey faced a lot of backlash for the 11th track in the album, called Heated.

Made in collaboration with Drake, the song contained the word 'spaz,' which was alleged as an ableist slur by several disability activists. Several fans of Queen Bey also pointed out that the word has an African-American meaning which is synonymous with 'freaking out.'

However, Queen Bey was quick to announce through her publicist that the word was not used intentionally and would be changed immediately.

"The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced," Beyonce's publicist told NPR.

The song Heated was first performed by Queen Bey live in Stockholm on the opening night of her record-breaking Renaissance World Tour. The song also peaked at number 51 on the United States Billboard Hot 100.