Allison Tripp wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Impeachment: American Crime Story when it premiered in September.
Her mother, Linda Tripp, had been vilified and ridiculed two decades ago, when the lifelong civil servant turned over audio tapes of her conversations with Monica Lewinsky that would lead to Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment. Linda died last year, and Allison was still grieving when the first episode aired this fall. Allison, a mother of four living in Virginia, knew that another negative portrayal of her mother would sting, especially given the recent loss. And when it was announced that Lewinsky was a producer on the series, Allison assumed the show would be biased.
“I was very guarded after that first episode, because I thought, especially with Monica being a producer, that this was gonna go askew,” says Allison, who works as a real estate agent, buyer for her mother’s Christmas store, and consultant for the clothing boutique For Love and Sapphires.
After seeing the show’s first nine episodes, though, Allison is moved by the empathetic depiction of all its female characters, including her mother. Speaking about Lewinsky, she says, “I commend her for sharing as much as she has. It really had to have been very difficult. [I hope] it’s allowed her some freedom.”
Allison was a teenager when she met Lewinsky—and only knew her peripherally, from her mother’s interactions with her.
“I didn’t know Monica that well, but from what I had heard from mom, she was very sweet, very witty, very smart, just a bubbly personality,” says Allison. “I didn’t have a terrible perception of her. The whole situation was out of the realm of my comprehension at that time.”
Watching the series, Allison found herself feeling for all the women involved—including Lewinsky.
“Now, as an adult—and as I’ve gone through tumultuous relationships myself—I can absolutely understand where she was as such a young person having to navigate that…. You get sucked into the vortex of thinking something is normal when it’s so unhealthy.”
Allison is still careful to defend her mother’s decision to tape-record their conversations; Linda felt, she says, “that documentation was her only way.” Explaining that she is a very different person than her mother, Allison adds, “I’m not going to even question the why, because I can’t at this point. But honestly, watching the show, I wanted to just kind of hug Monica and say, ‘You’ll be okay. Run, sprint away from this situation.’”
“I mean that wholeheartedly—when Monica was being strung along pre-scandal breaking and I mean it during the time when she was saying horrible things about my mom after the fact. Monica was in a very compromised mental state pre-scandal and post-scandal. The question posed to my mom—‘Did you ever think what would become of Monica when all of this came to light?’—I feel this was never a fair question for my mom to have to answer. Monica made these choices repeatedly and these were choices she and she alone would have to live with.”
Lewinsky’s involvement in the series, which has helped resuscitate Linda’s reputation, has left Allison with “a lot of empathy towards her, and what she went through. I thank her for sharing. And I’m glad she can financially gain and be a part of this after everything.”
Allison wonders whether it was Lewinsky who helped recreate the show’s eerily accurate facsimile of the Tripps’ family home—“everything from the artwork on the walls to the color of her porcelain. It’s kind of crazy, and like stepping back into my childhood home.”
She was also surprised to learn that she is a supporting character in the sprawling ensemble. Impeachment depicts Allison (Emma Malouff) in early episodes as a teenager annoyed that her mother’s attention lies elsewhere. That rings true: “I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for sure,” acknowledges the real Allison. “[The show] helped me big time to explain why she wasn’t around baking cookies with me or something. She was dealing with a lot of heavy stuff.”
Later episodes depict Allison as her mother’s protector and lone support system as Linda is maligned by the media and the general public. That too struck a chord.
“As soon as she really started opening up to me about the heaviness of what was taking place, I was helpless feeling,” says Allison. “I tried my best to be there for her and support her. It was so heavy to have to deal with at that age…but I had to be there. Not by force, but because she needed the support when everyone else was completely going against her.”
Allison says that she, perhaps unconsciously, has built a life for herself that is the “polar opposite” from her mother’s—who spent many years as a workaholic braving a long commute.
“I take the simple pleasures in life and pick up my kids from school, take them to their activities. You’re always replaceable at work, but your family life is fundamental and the most important thing in your entire life. As you have children, you see things through the clearest of lenses,” says Allison. “I think that’s why my mom had so much guilt. She did try to make up for the lack of time she spent with us later, when she was retired and moved [to Virginia]. But she was always very career-minded. I don’t know if it was generational or something she wanted to accomplish. After only two years of secretarial school, I think she did a hell of a job. But again, I’ve lived my life very differently.”
Of her children, Allison’s 13-year-old son is most into the series. “He’s just soaking it all in and asking all kinds of questions. I think they are much more admiring of Omi, as they called her. She was always such a rock to them. This show is not G-rated, so I’m really letting them explore a little more than I ordinarily would. But I feel it’s important.”
Her eldest daughter, meanwhile, is 16—a few years younger than Allison was when Linda’s actions changed her life.
“The trauma of it certainly has taken its toll,” says Allison. Her brother “might’ve had more resentment.… He is more bottled-up than I am and he kind of got more quiet. Not until watching this show did I realize the amount of trauma I did just bury.”
Neither she nor Linda underwent traditional therapy after the scandal, instead discovering healing through horses. These days, when Allison is overcome with grief or emotion, she rides. “It’s my safe haven and makes me feel close to her too,” says Allison, who earlier this year created the Linda Rose Foundation, a charitable equine therapy program. The farm is located in The Plains, Virginia, and has already begun offering classes.
Linda tried to protect her children from the pain she was feeling—laughing at cruel parodies of her like the one John Goodman did on Saturday Night Live. But Allison would see how her mother really felt when she turned to vices.
“When she felt really kind of kicked down with John Goodman and all of the other caricatures done of her, she would fall into more of a trap of ‘I give up’–eating to soothe her emotional pain. That’s how I was able to decipher [her feelings]. I knew she was really struggling with this, but that was the only indication. She wouldn’t talk to me about how this was hurting her. She wouldn’t. She always struggled with weight, and it broke my heart. She always did. But do you ridicule someone for that? No. Don’t you think they feel bad enough?”
In a previous conversation with Vanity Fair, Allison said the series physically portrayed her mother “in a more flattering way than how she was portrayed when she was alive.” And she’s glad that the series has shown the world the other sides of her mother as well.
“She had a much warmer side, a very contagious laugh, and was just extremely motherly as a whole. It drove me crazy how everything was done perfectly and had to be done the right way.”
Allison does have a few small notes for Impeachment’s writers; she doesn’t think, for instance, that her mother would have reprimanded a total stranger for incorrect use of a waffle maker, as Paulson does in episode nine. And it should be noted that the real Linda “hated TV dinners”—even though the series shows Linda heating one frozen meal after the next. Otherwise, Allison appreciates the show’s interpretation of her mother—especially Linda’s hilariously tense relationship with a Pentagon cubicle mate. “We were dying,” laughs Allison. “I vaguely remember her mentioning that when she got sent to the Pentagon, she was forced to share this workspace with this horrific woman…that definitely made us giggle, watching that.”
Allison also marvels at the accuracy of Paulson’s performance—especially in small moments, like the way Paulson’s Linda lights up discussing Christmas or delivers one of the real Linda’s favorite phrases, “What on God’s green earth?”
“I honestly cannot believe how good of a job she’s done. I see so much of my mom. How is that even possible, because she never spoke to my mom?” wonders Allison. “Maybe she watched videos of her over and over again. That’s some serious talent. I caught myself almost feeling mom there. It’s so weird and surreal. The only thing they got wrong about mom as far as her appearance, her mannerisms, et cetera—her eyes were the most crystal blue. And the show has them brown. But she’s done a phenomenal job.”
If Allison were to meet Paulson, she says, “I’d probably just want to give her a hug, in all honesty.”
Thinking about what the actor has done for her mother’s reputation, Allison starts to cry.
“She has helped soften [my mom’s image] and allowed for people to have a different vantage point of what really took place,” says Allison. “Because of that, I’d want to hug the shit out of her.”
The series has been oddly healing and cathartic for Allison. She hopes that the same has been true for Lewinsky.
“Monica certainly has her reasons for despising my mom during that time and in front of the grand jury. I understand from a twentysomething perspective why she could feel that way. But I feel like, if roles were reversed and Monica was the 40-something single mother of two, who didn’t come from money, who worked her ass off, with a modest education, and spent her life serving our country—I feel like maybe she would have a little bit more understanding towards my mom.”
Allison knows her mother would be tickled by the series. As an afterthought, I email Allison a single follow-up question: Does she think that Linda would be so touched by the empathetic Impeachment depiction that she would attempt to reach out to Lewinsky after all of these years?
Within an hour, Allison gets back to me: “I think she likely would have.”
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