A former Arkansas state clerk, Paula Jones was allegedly sexually harassed by then-Governor Bill Clinton in Little Rock in May 1991.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoPaula Jones at a press conference at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in 1998.
A meeting at a hotel in 1991 changed Paula Jones’ life forever, sparking a legal battle that would shake a presidency and dominate headlines.
Paula Jones was working as an Arkansas state employee when she alleged that then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton sexually harassed her at a conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. She went public with her accusation a few years later, in 1994, eventually leading to a high-profile lawsuit.
Between 1994 and 1998, Jones and Clinton’s legal teams engaged in a fierce back and forth, and the case even went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In late 1998, Jones secured a settlement, which happened around the same time as Clinton’s impeachment over lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
While the media frenzy took a toll on Paula Jones, her case ultimately remains a pivotal moment in the history of presidential scandals.
The Early Life Of Paula Jones — And A Life-Altering Encounter With Bill Clinton
Paula Rosalee Corbin was born on Sept. 17, 1966, in Lonoke, Arkansas to her parents Bobby Gene Corbin and Delmer Lee. Her upbringing was typical, attending church with her pastor father and finishing high school in 1984.
Upon her graduation, she briefly attended secretarial school in Little Rock. There, she met her future husband Steve Jones in 1989, whom she married in 1991. She would eventually have two sons with him.
By 1991, Paula Jones had gotten a clerical job with the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (AIDC), an organization dedicated to improving economic development and industrial growth in Arkansas.
Shortly after accepting the job with the AIDC, Paula Jones had a life-altering run-in with the future U.S. President Bill Clinton.
On May 8, 1991, Jones attended the Third Annual Governor’s Quality Conference at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock with the AIDC. While she was working the registration desk at the conference, a man who said he was Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton’s bodyguard approached Jones and asked her to go to Clinton’s hotel room. When she arrived, Clinton allegedly propositioned her and exposed himself to her.
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies/Central Arkansas Library SystemThe Excelsior Hotel, where Jones claimed to have been sexually harassed by Bill Clinton.
For about three years, Jones kept the incident quiet, only telling close friends, purportedly out of fear of losing her job. It wasn’t until 1994 that she made her story public. By that point, Clinton was president.
Paula Jones Files A Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Against A U.S. President
In December 1993, some of Bill Clinton’s former security guards spoke to the magazine American Spectator about escorting a woman named “Paula” to Clinton in May 1991. The story soon captured the attention of Paula Jones.
After consulting with an attorney, Jones decided to speak publicly about her experience. With the backing of Susan Carpenter-McMillan, a popular conservative activist, Jones’ story started gaining traction. Looking back at the incident, Jones claimed that conservative politicians and news outlets treated her as a pawn to undermine the Democratic president.
“I hate the fact that people thought it was political,” Jones later told TIME. “It was their agenda to make it [seem] like I was trying to bring down the President. They let political views bog their mind of what really happened.”
Jones claimed that she would be willing to settle out of court if the president admitted that she was not at fault for the alleged incident.
However, when Clinton hired attorney Robert Bennett and publications started reporting on the “illegitimacy” of her case, Jones became furious. On May 6, 1994, Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton for $700,000, shortly before the statute of limitations expired.
She also asked for an apology.
Richard Ellis/Alamy Stock PhotoDonovan Campbell, an attorney for Paula Jones, speaking to reporters.
In June 1994, Clinton asked the court to delay the trial until the end of his presidency. The court then heard arguments regarding whether the trial should be delayed. In January 1996, an appeals court ruled that the trial would go forward, setting the trial date to May 27, 1998.
Clinton’s team argued that there was no precedent to carry out a civil lawsuit against a sitting president, especially for an alleged incident that had occurred before the actual presidency. The issue became so contentious that it eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, the court ruled against Clinton and allowed for the civil suit to stand.
While the trial was in limbo, Clinton and Jones’ legal teams discussed settlement payments. On Sept. 8, 1997, two of Jones’ lawyers resigned after she turned down an offer of $700,000 because Clinton’s team refused to issue an official apology for the incident. A month later, depositions began.
Clinton and Jones’ legal teams continued to go back and forth. Jones increased her proposed settlement amount to $2 million by January 1998.
On Feb. 17, 1998, Clinton filed a motion to dismiss the case, and on April 1, 1998, Judge Susan Wright threw out the case, citing that Paula Jones could not prove she suffered any damages from the alleged incident. However, Jones appealed in court to reinstate her sexual harassment lawsuit.
While tackling Jones’ lawsuit, Clinton became embroiled in another sex scandal. Jones’ lawyers eventually learned about Clinton’s secret relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which began in November 1995 and lasted about 18 months. This eventually led to both Clinton and Lewinsky denying their relationship under oath in the Jones case. For Clinton, his denial ultimately paved the way for his impeachment.
The Washington PostThe Washington Post reports on Clinton’s impeachment.
Paula Jones’ story helped add legitimacy to the Lewinsky scandal, emphasizing a pattern of sexually inappropriate actions from the U.S. president and digging up damning evidence of such behavior.
Clinton’s false claims about his relationship with Lewinsky were ultimately used by Ken Starr, the former lawyer who led the investigation into the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, leading the charge to impeach the U.S. president. As Amanda Hess, a journalist for The New York Times, later reported:
“Over two decades, it was easy to forget that the reporting on Clinton’s consensual affair with an intern arose out of an even more damning context: Jones’s harassment suit. (It was Lewinsky and Clinton denying their affair under oath in the Jones case that gave Starr the material to pounce.)
Paula Jones spoke out against the most powerful man in the world, and when his lawyers argued that a sitting president couldn’t be subject to a civil suit, she took them all the way to the Supreme Court and won.”
The Aftermath Of A 1990s Presidential Scandal
A month after Bill Clinton’s impeachment inquiry was authorized by the House, Paula Jones settled her case for $850,000. Although Clinton did not apologize or admit wrongdoing, Jones accepted the case’s conclusion.
To finance the settlement, Clinton pulled about $375,000 from his and his wife’s personal funds and about $475,000 from an insurance policy.
“This ends it. The check is being Fed-Exed,” an official familiar with the settlement said at the time, according to The Guardian.
ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoPaula Jones shows off a check that was given to her in an attempt to settle her lawsuit.
However, Clinton’s issues were not over yet. In April 1999, Judge Susan Wright found Clinton in civil contempt of court for giving false testimony about his relationship with Lewinsky in the Jones sexual harassment case. Clinton was fined, and he was also banned from practicing law in Arkansas for five years. And while Clinton was ultimately not removed from office after his impeachment, his scandals left a mark on his legacy that endures today.
In the years following the case, Jones attempted to rebuild her life. Her marriage to Steve Jones had collapsed during the litigation process, and she struggled to move on from the incident and media frenzy. In addition, she only received a settlement payment of $150,000 after paying legal fees.
Attempting to capitalize on her name recognition from the scandal, Jones briefly worked in the entertainment industry. She appeared on Celebrity Boxing alongside Tonya Harding, a former figure skater who was caught in a scandal of her own. Jones appeared nude in Penthouse magazine in 2000. She also appeared in films, such as the comedy The Blue Dress.
“I mean, why not?” she later told TIME. “It wasn’t hurting me. It wasn’t hurting my family. It wasn’t something I was ashamed of.”
In 2001, Jones married her neighbor, Steven Mark McFadden. By 2009, she had secured a job as a real estate agent in Arkansas.
IMDbA more recent photo of Paula Jones.
Her story was recently immortalized in the 2021 show Impeachment: American Crime Story. The show follows the affair between Clinton and Lewinsky, with Jones played by Annaleigh Ashford.
And while Jones has taken issue with her portrayal in the show, she has also expressed happiness that there has been ongoing interest in her story.
In one interview with FOX News, Jones stated: “I felt like all of the American people did not believe me because of the things that were said about me, and said that people would say that it was just for the money, and it wasn’t about the money. It was about what he did to me. And I knew I was telling the truth… it’s behind me now. And I’ve moved on with my life.”
After reading about Paula Jones, dive into the most shocking scandals of the 1990s. Then, learn about nine presidential sex scandals.
