She wanted the public to see them as a man and a woman, instead of the President and the Intern, and as far as Ms Monica Lewinsky was concerned at the height of her flirtatious, exciting relationship with President Clinton, what the First Lady didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
In Channel 4's Monica - The Interview, and a special Dispatches programme shown simultaneously on RTE1, last night British and Irish viewers got their chance to see beyond the image of full red lips and big black hair that had reduced Ms Lewinsky to a puppet-like object without a voice.
Here was a slick, pale-faced Ms Lewinsky, who didn't discuss the intimacies of their relationship in a giggly high-pitched squeak but spoke with measured confidence and honesty throughout. The most painful moment came when Ms Lewinsky admitted she had considered jumping from a 10th floor window when she was repeatedly told she faced 27 years in prison if she did not testify to the Grand Jury while being interrogated by the Independent Counsel, Mr Kenneth Starr.
Stumbling over her words and sighing deeply as she spoke, Ms Lewinsky told the interviewer, Jon Snow: "I remember looking out of the window and thinking `well, I can't begin to fathom what's going to unfold here and I can't begin to think of how this is going to hurt the President, hurt my family and I thought - well, maybe if I'm not here, it won't happen.' So I seriously considered jumping."
Mr Starr has banned Ms Lewinsky from talking about the detail of the interrogation but she spoke about being "terrified . . . never been so afraid in my entire life. I lost my breath - the whole world flashed before my eyes, the room was spinning - it was terribly, terribly frightening."
In an interview in yesterday's Mirror, Ms Lewinsky also revealed that she had had an abortion while still seeing Mr Clinton, following another affair with a man called Thomas who worked alongside her at the Pentagon. She was not emotionally prepared for the abortion, which she said was "just horrible and very depressing".
Perhaps with Ms Linda Tripp's tell-all interviews on cable television in mind and the opportunity afforded Mr Clinton to present his side of the story, Ms Lewinsky adopted a confessional-style approach. Quietly and calmly, the point being made was that despite selling her story to pay off legal bills estimated at $2 million - it was her turn to be heard.
The hour-long Channel 4 interview, ahead of a two-week book tour during which Ms Lewinsky will appear but not speak at bookshops and department stores across Britain, also saw Ms Lewinsky admit she believed her relationship with Mr Clinton could survive beyond the White House. Speaking frankly about the early days of their relationship when she found herself thinking "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm this close to you and you're so cute . . ." Ms Lewinsky said the President smiled at her one day and spoke of the future. She had told him she thought they would make a good team once he left the White House. His reply was, she said: "Well, what are we gonna do when I'm 75 and I have to go to the bathroom 25 times a day?"
Cheeky advertisers also cashed in on the "big television event" which Channel 4 expected would attract two million viewers. The manufacturers of the stain remover, Vanish, bought expensive air-time for their product during a commercial break after Ms Lewinsky spoke about "the dress". Channel 4 even found time to screen a Volkswagen ad against a White House backdrop.
Reuters adds: The son of Ms Tripp, the woman who betrayed Ms Lewinsky over her relationship with Mr Clinton, said yesterday Ms Lewinsky's version of events was "fictional".