Technically, it has been 13 years since Amanda Knox was set free, released from an Italian prison after her 2009 conviction for murder was overturned in October 2011. But in the years since, she reveals in a new interview that she has found there is a massive difference between being granted your freedom and living it daily.
“When you hear a story about someone being exonerated, it normally ends with this euphoric high of walking out of prison and then it’s just assumed life afterward is this Disney fairytale happy-ever-after ending,” the 37-year-old tells WHO over Zoom.
“But that’s not what I got. There is still a lot of trauma and things that have to be dealt with.”
Why was Amanda Knox in prison?
Knox was just 20 when she headed off to Italy for a year as an exchange student in 2007.
She had dreams of falling in love, eating pasta and becoming fluent in the language so she could land a job as an interpreter after graduation.
The future she envisioned, however, was gone in an instant on November 2 that year when her British flatmate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, was brutally sexually assaulted and murdered in their share house.
After an all-night interrogation with no interpreter, during which she claims to have been hit by police, Knox signed a confession.
Alongside her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, Knox was convicted of the fatal assault.
The perpetrator was actually drifter Rudy Guede, who served 13 years of a 16-year sentence and was released in 2021.
Despite being exonerated twice over an almost two-decade-long fight to clear her name, she continues to be judged in the court of public opinion.
“There will be people who see only ‘Foxy Knoxy’,” she says of the nickname she was given while on trial.
In her new memoir, Free, Knox explores how the caricature of herself, which she has described as a “sex-crazed girl gone wild femme fatale”, continued to leave her feeling trapped by her name once she returned to the US.
What does Amanda Knox do now?
Knox needed a new purpose and found it in becoming an advocate for reform in the criminal justice system, particularly regarding interrogation techniques.
“It took a long time to come to terms with [the fact that] the life that I had before and wanted to go back to was gone, and I had to start a new life,” she explains.
“But I have become an interpreter, using my experience to bridge the gap between the criminal justice system and those caught up in it with no experience.”
Together with husband Christopher Robinson, she hosts podcast Labyrinths, which explores wrongful convictions.
At their Seattle home, the pair raise their two children, daughter Eureka, 3, and 16-month-old son Echo. Motherhood was almost a dream she had given up after being handed a 26-year sentence.
“In those moments where I have only had two hours of sleep and been licked or peed on one too many times, I remind myself this was almost stolen from me and I’m so lucky because becoming a parent is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” she reflects.
Most importantly, today, she does feel free.
“There are things [in] my experience that are not over but I have embraced all of my life. I no longer have to push away parts of my existence because I feel trapped.”
Buy Free: My Search For Meaning by Amanda Knox here.
