Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was emotional as she reveals details of her life after a high-profile sex scandal with President Bill Clinton at a Philadelphia forum Monday.

In her first public address since the highly-publicized sex scandal with the president, she referred to herself as "patient zero" of cyberbullying and vowed to give justice to her past by helping people deal with online harassment.

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Lewinsky said she believes her story of public humiliation, personal disintegration and survival has the power to help curb the culture of humiliation online. She was giving her address to thousands of young entrepreneurs and super-achievers at Forbes' 30 Under 30 Summit.

The then 22-year-old intern, who became a household name in the years following the 1998 sex scandal, said she was advised countless times to change her name-and for good reason.

Lewinsky turned from a "completely public figure to a publicly humiliated one" whose reputation was destroyed worldwide when news of her White House affair went viral online.

Breaking her nearly 16-years-long silence for the second time, she said she fell in love with President Clinton in an affair that lasted for about two years.

She first wrote about her life after the White House scandal in the Vanity Fair in June, her first public words, in which she said she was determined to give her story a "different ending."

The affair compelled the House of Representatives to impeach President Clinton in 1999. He was later acquitted by the Senate and was able to finish his second term in 2001.

Lewinsky nearly dissolved in tears telling the miserable months that saw her threatened in various ways, including spending 27 years jail time for denying her affair with the president and a threat of prosecution to her mother for her refusal to wear wire.

Describing the past 16 years of her life, Monica Lewinsky, now 41, recalls the Bill Clinton scandal with a deep sense of shame marred by long periods of suicidal thoughts. She said she cringed at the thought of her showing herself in public.

But the tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi in 2010, a freshman at Rutgers University, who was derided for an online video of him kissing another man, gave her a renewed sense of purpose.

TagsMonica Lewinsky, Lewinsky scandal