Former U.S. President Bill Clinton gestures as he speaks to the audience during "The Third Way" summit in Cartagena, July 1, 2014.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton gestures as he speaks to the audience during "The Third Way" summit in Cartagena, July 1, 2014. REUTERS

Hillary Clinton had reportedly revealed through a magazine interview that Bill Clinton' sex addiction was brought on by a traumatic childhood of physical abuse.

According to New York Daily News, Hillary had reportedly revealed Bill's childhood memories with journalist Lucinda Franks in a magazine interview. The interview happened a year after Bill Clinton' sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky made headlines in 1999. It was then published in Tina Brown's "Talk" magazine. However, according to her new memoir, "Timeless: Love, Morgenthau and Me," Franks claimed what was published was only a portion of the full interview. She had not divulged what the former US First Lady had directly told her about Bill to avoid causing a stir in the political media. But now New York Daily News has retrieved snippets of her memoir where Franks revealed Bill Clinton's abusive childhood.

The Pulitzer-prize winner wrote in her memoir that Hillary Clinton had specifically told her that Bill Clinton was abused as a child by his mother. That's why he had become a sex addict.

Franks recalled Hillary telling her that Bill's mother, Kelly, would hurt him "in ways you wouldn't believe."

"He was abused. When a mother does what she does, it affects you forever," Hillary had said according to the memoir.

Hillary told Franks that the abuse was such a traumatic experience for Bill, or for any child in that matter, that it left a scar.

"When a mother does what she does, it affects you forever," Hillary said.

Although the former US First Lady did not specify the details of the abuse, she had reportedly claimed it was the source of Bill Clinton's adulteries.

The original interview with Hillary Clinton and Lucinda Franks didn't mention Bill's past as an abused child. Instead, it was more of the problems his mother, Kelley, faced with his grandmother Edith Cassidy, that seemed to have sheltered Bill in an abusive atmosphere.

"He was so young, barely 4, when he was scarred by abuse and he can't even take it out and look at it," Hillary had said on "Talk."

The interview reflected on the former US President as being in the centre of two women having a conflict with each other that Bill, as a child, "always had a desire to please each one."

Meanwhile, Monica Lewinsky had also spoken about her affair with Bill Clinton after ten years of silence in Vanity Fair. She said she has finally decided to move forward and fulfil her life with a different ending.

"I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past," she said.

New York Daily News has reached out to Lucinda Franks for comments on her memoir and she has still to acknowledge her revelations about Bill Clinton.