An Interview With Gennifer Flowers: On First Indiscretions

By J. Ryan Gilfoil | Wednesday, February 4, 1998

Editor's Note: This interview was conducted in June of 1995, following the publication of Ms. Flowers's book on her relationship with President Clinton and the ensuing public revelations.

Review: How was your affair with Bill Clinton made public?

Flowers: The story was made public through a lawsuit by Larry Nichols in Arkansas back during Bill's last gubernatorial election. Then Nichols put out a press release that listed five women, and my name was among them, and that's how it became public in the first place.

Review: Then reporters came digging?

Flowers: That was after he had decided to run for President. That's when it became national news. See, the local media didn't do much about it. They did a little fourth-of-a-column in the newspaper.

Review: Did they not print the full story because of Bill's power in the town?

Flowers: Definitely. Sure, sure it was.

Review: You released tape recorded telephone conversations between you and Bill Clinton in which he tells you to lie to reporters about your affair or to blame Republicans for starting these rumors. Could you elaborate on how Clinton instructed you to cover this up?

Flowers: That was his whole theory —if we stick together and deny it, everything will be okay. I was really more concerned about it than he was, but he just felt if everybody went on record denying it, he could keep the story covered up. Obviously it didn't work. I think it was because he felt so bulletproof in Arkansas and was able to cover up things, since he was the power over everything. He was surprised at the power of the national media, and how he wasn't ultimately able to cover things up like he had been before.

Review: Gary Johnson, your neighbor in the Quapaw Towers in Arkansas, said he had a videotape of Bill Clinton entering your apartment. He was beaten nearly to death, and the tape was allegedly stolen. Do you suspect that Bill Clinton might have been involved?

Flowers: I sure do. Gary Johnson let it be known that he had the videotape. I know he had the video camera mounted, and I know he had the opportunity. I find it very odd that all of the sudden two people come in and try to beat him to death when he lets it be known in town that he has the video. I think it's very likely that Bill's people had something to do with it. Who else would do it? Who else would want to kill the man for a videotape?

Review: You allege that Bill Clinton helped you secure a state job in Arkansas. How did he help you?

Flowers: He didn't help me. He got it. You can say 'help,' but he didn't ask 'please,' he got [me] the job. He called a guy named Don Barnes who was the head of the Board of Review agency for the state. Clinton had appointed Don Barnes to head that agency.

So Clinton had one of his people research what positions were available. And then he called Don Barnes when he found that one was available, and they had to go through some of the hiring process just to make it look like [normal hiring procedure].

Then they went through the interview process, and I got the job. There was a grievance filed by Charlette Perry, and she won the ruling of the ten people on the grievance committee. She was supposed to get my job, but Don Barnes had the veto power, so he just vetoed it. I called Bill and said, 'You know, I'm really concerned about the questions they were asking me about how I got the job.' He said, 'Well, don't worry about it. Barnes has the veto power, and he'll take care of it.' So that was it.

Review: Some of Clinton's state troopers verified that he had been to your apartment frequently. Has anyone else corroborated your story?

Flowers: My tapes are verification of a relationship, and they've been verified by one of the top labs in the country as never having been edited or tampered with in any way. Also, two L.A. Times reporters, in the course of their investigation of the trooper story, got Bill's phone records and tracked them back to me to 1977.

Review: What made you decide to be so forthright in describing in your book the intimate details of your sexual activities with Bill Clinton?

Flowers: You're much younger than I am. I'm a sexually liberated woman that earned that liberation. I am very proud of the fact that I feel comfortable in certain forums discussing sex. We had sex together, and I felt that to have left out the sexual nature of the relationship would have been pretty hypocritical. Going into detail about it was something that I tremendously enjoyed. It was nice to relive in my memory some of that.

The abortion issue was not something that I brought up, but it was discovered. I was questioned about it in circumstances where I was supposed to be completely honest and open in the interview process in Penthouse. When it was asked of me, I confirmed that, yes, I had an abortion, and the baby was his. I hadn't chosen to bring that up because it was such a sensitive subject for my mother, who is a Catholic.

I think it's a woman's right to make that choice. I'm not ashamed of making that choice. To have left that out of the book would have been pretty obvious since it had been talked about so often.

Review: You described Bill and Hillary as having an agreement to extramarital affairs. Could you elaborate?

Flowers: All I know is what Bill told me. I never knew anything about that as fact. However, I had no reason to doubt what he told me. He obviously knew, and it just didn't bother him. He thought it was funny. He was very casual about it. I was the one that was concerned.

Review: Was Hillary's affair with a man or a woman?

Flowers: A woman.

Review: In your book you described Bill Clinton smoking marijuana with you on a number of occasions and even describing his own cocaine use.

Flowers: Well, he described what it did to him when he used it [cocaine]. He didn't use it around me. He laughed and said that if I wanted to do it, he could get some. And he laughed and said that when he did cocaine it made his scalp itch really badly, and that he felt like a goofball because he walked around wanting to scratch his head like Gomer Pyle.

Review: What did you think of the Clintons' appearance on 60 Minutes, in which Bill Clinton denied having an affair?

Flowers: Well, I didn't expect Bill to tell the truth about our relationship. I was appalled to hear that they [60 Minutes] could have edited that show either way — one was the way that we saw it, which helped his campaign and got him elected to the Presidency — and the other way would have put him back in New Hampshire looking for votes.

Now, I do not believe that 60 Minutes tried to get at the truth of the matter. They knew what kind of ratings they were going to get at the Superbowl with Bill and Hillary Clinton on, after my story had become public. It was all a game of ratings. It wasn't about the truth, and I think in that respect they did the American public a disservice.

The American public has a right to know various things — a lot of things — about a person who wants to become our President. For a show that is supposed to practice responsible journalism to allow something like that to happen, I think is a travesty. I think it's an insult to the American public. I think 60 Minutes should be ashamed of itself. Bill and Hillary sat up there and lied to save their *sses. Okay, that's bad enough — but it was worse that 60 Minutes, for the ratings, which translates into money and power, after all, allowed that story to come out as it did, without trying to get to the bottom of the story and the facts. It was a joke.

Review: Do you think that Bill and Hillary are exploiting their relationship for political interests?

Flowers: Oh, sure they are. They're still working as a team. Even if Bill had wanted to be honest about it — if he had said, 'I caused pain in my marriage with women' — it's probably going to be really hard for you to campaign while you're going through a divorce.

Hillary didn't want to be humiliated in front of the nation. You know, she's putting forth this image of independence, liberation, and integrity — ha!

And in order to maintain this image she puts forth she didn't need him to admit that he womanized. I think that if he had admitted to womanizing, he would have been a hero to the American public, because they would have thought, 'We finally have a politician who can be honest with us. If Bill and Hillary can put it behind them, we'll allow that and go on.'

Review: What do you think of Hillary personally?

Flowers: I think it's a shame that Hillary isn't all that she claims to be. I would love to see a woman in the White House, a First Lady, be a liberated, independent-thinking woman with integrity.

But I feel that she has compromised her integrity on an ongoing basis for a number of years for this man. As far as her independence and liberation, that is just fine until it becomes inconvenient for his position, and she's told to back off. So how truly independent can she be? She'll be out there for a while, and when that becomes unpopular they'll stick her in the background. She should say, 'Look, you're not sticking me in the background. This is what I believe, damn it — and this is what I'm going to say.' Her integrity and her independence are only there when it's convenient, and when it's not she has to compromise them and go back in the closet. I think they're birds of a feather. I think one is just as bad as the other. I think that they're going to do what it takes to stay in that office and to get back into that office. And whatever groups they have to sacrifice, and whatever people have to be sacrificed, so be it.

Review: Do you think Bill Clinton would allow physical harm to come to his enemies?

Flowers: Oh, I do. Indirectly. I don't think Bill's going to go out and do these things himself. But I think that indirectly he's capable of doing a lot of things. His hands may be tied more now than ever before, because he's in such a high-profile situation. I'm not calling Bill a murderer, but I'm just saying that I think he's very capable of doing what it takes to accomplish what he needs.

Review: Do you think Bill Clinton is an appropriate representative of what America stands for?

Flowers: I don't think Bill is a role model for anyone. There certainly are some accomplishments to Bill's credit that could be considered worthy of a role model. Bill is basically a self-made man. Nobody gave him anything. He had very strong goals and ambitions and he was very determined. Obviously, Bill Clinton has accomplished the ultimate political goal.

But I think that character matters — and I just don't have any respect for him at this point on that basis. I think that not only should he have accomplished various things to be a role model to speak to your school, but I think that he should be an honest man with integrity as well.

I think that integrity and character and honesty matter in a role model. It matters in anyone, but if you are going to put yourself out there as a role model, then you have a lot of responsibility.

Don't get me wrong. I know we're all human and no one's perfect, but you make choices — you make a choice to be a teacher, you make a choice to want to be the President of the United States. In doing so you should realize the responsibility that goes with it in terms of being a role model.

For example, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker — guys like that who are ultimate role models — they devastate lives when they turn out to be less than they pretend. Bill Clinton is in the position of affecting all of our lives as American citizens.

I'd like to think that the man could be honest with us. But I think he's going to be as honest as he needs to be until it becomes inconvenient.

An Interview With Gennifer Flowers: On First Indiscretions

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