Monica doesn’t go here anymore
Media descended on Beverly Hills High after Monica controversy.
“It’s kind of strange to attend a school like Beverly when you know that the chair you are sitting in for an honors English placement exam was the exact same chair that Eric Menendez sat in when he was in high school. It is even stranger when your history teacher talks about how the teenage Nicholas Cage participated in some heavy make-out sessions behind you when the lights were turned off. It is even weirder when two of your teachers tell you that Monica Lewinsky was in their classes.
None of us students are Hollywood celebs, at least not anybody I know of. But when a scandal breaks loose and it has something to do with our school, we can be sure that we will be treated like celebrities for at least a week.
Such was the case when the press found out about an alleged relationship between President Bill Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. She attended Beverly for a while, but graduated from Pacific Hills.
Students started making stuff up to get on TV
We got the star treatment when cameras waited for us on the sidewalk (but not on school property) to get out of school so that they could interview us, even though none of us knew Monica, who left Beverly in 1990. Students flocked to the cameras and microphones, blurting out anything to get on TV.
“I had Monica as my baby-sitter!” “I went to elementary school with Monica when I was in the first grade!” “My cousin was friends with her!”
All this for 15 seconds of fame on tabloid TV shows. But when I asked students who gave these remarks if they were true or not they responded, “Of course not. Do I look like I’d associate with her?”
Most of these students told me that they just said those things because wanted to get on TV. Another group said that the interviews were a joke and that the point of the whole schbang was to be as outrageous as possible, “like on the Jerry Springer Show” and to “stand out so they’d include you in the segment.”
But, all the attention started to get on everybody’s nerves, faculty and students alike. My journalism teacher Gil Chesterton said he was disturbed that so many media sources were quoting former or current Beverly students without checking their sources to see if they are lying.
One afternoon, I caught a journalist from U.S. News and World Report snooping around my journalism room. When she saw me, she said, “You must be Genevieve, the editor of the paper.” How scary—she knew my name!
I wasn’t going to tell her anything, so she left after five minutes of grilling me and the yearbook editors who were standing with me. Upon exiting the classroom, she said, “So, next time there’s any news… dirt, I’ll come to you.” And she winked at me. Ha ha.
One student’s sister, who had attended school with Monica, had her secretaries lie to the press to avoid speaking to them even though they offered her money.
‘Hard Copy’ reporters visited a teacher’s house
Choir teacher Joel Pressman, who had taught Monica, found “Hard Copy” reporters outside his home.
When interviewed for my school newspaper Highlights he said, “I don’t really remember Monica— actually, I had to look in an old yearbook to even know what she looked like.”
Meanwhile, there were rumors that others had crumbled under the media’s pressure. One parent supposedly sold a home video of Monica in the high school musical. Some alums sold information to tabloid TV shows like “Inside Edition.” Former Performing Arts Dept. technician Andy Bleiler, who allegedly had slept with Monica, gave a press conference in Oregon regarding his relationship with her.
They called us the ‘Clueless kids’
A front page article in the Daily News, written by Jennifer Knight and David Bloom, began: “It’s a scandal worthy of Aaron Spelling, and for once, the ‘Clueless’ kids of Beverly Hills High have something to talk about besides their favorite cell phone provider or the latest sale on Rodeo.”
It made me angry because it sounded like the outside world thought all we students could do was complain about how rich we were. I don’t own a cell phone and I don’t shop on Rodeo. And I know nothing about Monica Lewinsky.
My friend Justin and I tried to set the story straight a little bit by writing an article for “Highlights.” It didn’t come out quite the way I’d hoped. I misquoted my principal saying “I think this is a healthy thing for the school,” when he actually didn’t like it at all. I accidentally placed a yearbook picture of Lewinsky next to a caption saying, “The home economics class cooks up something spicy on page three.” I made these mistakes, even though I knew my sources well and rewrote our story three times. So I’m wondering, how many mistakes did the mainstream press make, when they were under tighter deadline pressure and had no inside sources?
If there’s anything I learned from all this, it’s that rumors aren’t facts. What if I go on to run for public office, and someday reporters are swarming Beverly to find some dirt on me? I hope everybody just hangs up the phone.”