Amanda Knox set to appear at Vancouver library event: 'How do I truly feel free?'
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Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn't commit. In the process, she became an infamous tabloid story.
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In 2007, in Perugia, Italy, the then-20-year-old Knox and her Italian, boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested for the murder of Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher.
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Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime, and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015.
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Now, 18 years later, Knox — who the tabloids dubbed 'Foxy Knoxy' — is returning to the story with a new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning. But instead of just re-litigating what happened to her, she turned her nightmare into a story of healing and hope for others searching for a path out of dark times.
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Knox, who also wrote the memoir Waiting to be Heard after being released from prison at age 25, decided to return to her story all these years later as she realized people were still interested.
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'I very specifically have tried to keep my personal life very private for years. And I couldn't,' said Knox, 37, who is a mother to two young kids and lives on Vashon Island in Washington state.
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A big sign of continued interest came when paparazzi and media descended on her 2020 wedding.
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'I tried to keep it really, really locked down,' said Knox recently from her home. 'I made sure that no one who was attending said anything to anyone. I was really strict about it, and even so, paparazzi showed up outside and started taking pictures of me and my various guests and writing articles.
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'My personal life remains in the public eye, even when it shouldn't be. And I'm instead sort of accepting that as part of my reality, and then asking myself, 'OK, what good can come from that?'' said Knox, who upon her release from prison cut her hair off, donned large glasses and worked in a basement bookstore.
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'What I came up with, is someone who is open and communicative and attempting to articulate really difficult things so that other people can see themselves in my experience, and I can see myself in their experience,' said Knox. 'Part of it is also me trying to feel like I belong to humanity again.'
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