| Gennifer Flowers | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 24, 1950 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
| Nationality | American |
| Website | |
| http://www.genniferflowers.com | |
Gennifer Flowers (born January 24, 1950) is a model and actress who allegedly had a sexual relationship with former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Prior to Bill Clinton's presidency, she also posed nude for Penthouse magazine and was an actress in two films and one TV show. After becoming a celebrity, she acted as herself in two films and guest starred as herself in various TV shows.
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Gennifer Flowers came forward during Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential election campaign, alleging that she had had a 12-year relationship with him.[1] Flowers at first denied that she had an affair with Clinton, but later changed her story.[2]
After Bill Clinton denied having a relationship with Flowers on 60 Minutes, she held a press conference in which she played tape recordings she had secretly recorded of phone calls with Clinton.[2] Clinton subsequently apologized publicly to Mario Cuomo for remarks he made about the then-Governor of New York on the tapes. However, news reports at the time speculated that the taped phone conversations between Flowers and Clinton could have been doctored.[2][3] Clinton aides James Carville and George Stephanopoulos also backed this claim as well.[4] George Stephanopoulos later claimed in a 2000 interview with journalist Tim Russert that "Oh, it was absolutely his voice, but they were selectively edited in a way to - to create some - some impression." [5]
In December 1996, Gennifer Flowers talked about her sexual relationship with Bill Clinton on The Richard Bey Show. The show was canceled the following day. Richard Bey later attributed a direct connection between the two consecutive events (see TV appearances).
In his presidential deposition in January 1998, while denying Kathleen Willey's sexual accusations against him, Bill Clinton admitted that he had a sexual encounter with Flowers.[6] In 1998, Flowers admitted that she had made a total net profit of $500,000 by publicizing her alleged affair with Clinton to Penthouse, Star Magazine and other news sources.[7] In his 2004 autobiography My Life, Clinton acknowledged testifying under oath that he had an encounter with Flowers. He stated it was only on one occasion in 1977.[6][7][8] However, it has not been proven exactly what type of sexual advances Clinton made during this 1977 encounter.[8]
Flowers sued George Stephanopoulos, James Carville and others in 1999 for defamation (later amending the suit in 2000 to include Hillary Rodham Clinton as a defendant), claiming that they orchestrated a campaign to discredit her. Judicial Watch represented her in her defamation lawsuit against Hillary's former aides, Stephanopoulos and Carville.[9] In her case, Flowers argued that the defendants ignored obvious warning signs that the television news reports did not conclusively determine that someone had interfered with the tapes.[10] In 2003, a federal judge further approved appeal,[11] The appeal was revived in 2002, but rejected by the Ninth Circuit in 2004.[10]
Gennifer Flowers published her memoir Gennifer Flowers: Passion and Betrayal in 1995. In it, she claimed she had experienced a sexual naïveté at the time of her alleged relationship with Clinton ("The first time he [ejaculated during oral sex], I was taken aback. I was saving that for my husband, if ever. But Bill was gentle and held me after.").
She posed nude for Penthouse magazine during this period and was featured in the December 1992 issue along with her story "Gennifer Flowers Tells All, Shows All".
After already being an actress in an Australian film in 1987, she played in another independent Australian film in 1992 and in the same year guest starred in the adult themed television comedy Dream On. She then played herself in Play It to the Bone and various TV shows.
Until Hurricane Katrina, she ran a cabaret called the Kelsto Club in a former bordello in New Orleans's French Quarter. As of 2007, she lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she occasionally writes a column.[12]
In 2008, she put the answering machine tapes of her conversations with Bill Clinton up for auction.[13]