Beyoncé is facing pressure to remove even more lyrics from her songs. Just days after the singer announced she would remove the word “spaz” from her song “Heated” on her recently-released album Renaissance, Monica Lewinsky on Monday suggested the Grammy winner revisit her 2013 single “Partition,” in which she refers to Lewinsky by name in a crass reference to her affair with President Bill Clinton.
Taking to Twitter earlier this week, the former White House intern wrote, “uhmm, while we’re at it… #Partition.” The tweet referenced the singer’s 2013 hit “Partition” from the 2013 Beyoncé album, which referenced Lewinsky by name as Beyoncé sang, “He popped all my buttons and he ripped my blouse/ He Monica Lewinski’d all on my gown,” a reference to the affair between Clinton and a then-21-year-old Lewinsky, which led to Clinton’s impeachment in 1998.
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This isn’t the first time Lewinsky has objected to the lyric. In an op-ed for Vanity Fair in 2014, Lewinsky wrote, “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.’” However, she went on to clarify that she engaged with the reference previously as a means to “find humor in painful/humiliating things,” and that she hadn’t directly reached out to Beyoncé’s camp to request that the lyric be changed or removed.
Amid her recent suggestion that Beyoncé change the lyrics, many Twitter users have voiced their support for the motion. One person replied, “You’re handling with a lot more grace than I could muster – the lyrics are so offensive…women need to do better of lifting each other up.” Another person simply wrote, “I agree with you, Monica.” After one person asked if Lewinksy actually reached out to Beyoncé or her reps about the lyric, Lewinsky confirmed, “No, i haven’t. i did mention it in the first vanity fair article i wrote in 2014… which was the first public thing i’d done in 10 years. but you make an interesting/fair point…”
In her Monday tweet, Lewinsky linked out to an article addressing the lyric in “Heated,” which includes the word “spaz.” After the song was released, many on social media noted that the word is ableist and derogatory. Amid a wave of calls urging Beyoncé to change the lyric, the singer’s team confirmed in a statement to Variety,” the word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced.”
