During her four years at Princeton, Laetitia Thompson '99 said she was never interesting enough to make the pages of The Daily Princetonian.
Apparently, she didn't tell many people that, at the age of 17, she had asked President Clinton a now-infamous question. "Mr. President," she said on MTV in April 1994, "The world's dying to know: Is it boxers or briefs?"
When an embarrassed Clinton answered, "Mostly briefs," Thompson's life changed forever.
"I've always suspected I got in [to Princeton] because I asked boxers versus briefs," Thompson said. "I wrote my essay on it."
When she asked Clinton about his underwear of choice, Thompson said, she wasn't thinking too hard, and the question was not meant to be forward.
"I was being 17," she explained. "And then, all the guys I went to school with wore their pants around their butts."
The ensuing attention was overwhelming as her question became national news — and it sometimes seems to Thompson that it will never fade.
When Clinton was impeached, Vanity Fair magazine called her and asked if she thought that, by opening a new level of inquiry, she was responsible for the president's predicament. And "The Today Show" is trying to book her as part of its upcoming inauguration programming.
While at Princeton, Thompson played rugby, was involved in Outdoor Action, tutored and coached soccer in Trenton and was a member of Cloister. She graduated with a history degree, part of her choice to have a truly "liberal education."
Eventually, she decided to pursue journalism, which was especially difficult at Princeton, Thompson said.
"I was stressing that I would not be as cool as all those investment bankers," she joked before turning serious. "At Princeton, if you're not interested in becoming an investment banker or a consultant, you're on your own."
After graduating, Thompson, still not sure about journalism as a career, took more than six months off and managed a ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "Since I graduated, I find myself apologizing for Princeton," she said. "When you get in and when you're at Princeton, you're so proud. But [in Wyoming], it can be more of a liability than an advantage . . . I felt like a closeted Princetonian."
Now, Thompson attends the University of Missouri's graduate school in journalism, regarded as one of the best in the country for broadcast reporting. In addition, she works for KMOX television and KMOU radio as a political reporter.
The boxers-versus-briefs episode, she said, has given her special sensitivity as a reporter.
"I know what it's like to be on the flip-side," she noted. "I've been misquoted, and taken out of context and felt injured and damaged."
But she wouldn't hesitate to do it again. "It's not going to go away," she said, "but I got to do some really cool stuff because of it."
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