Amanda Knox Is Moving On After Her Wrongful Murder Conviction

*This transcript was auto-generated*

Amanda Knox:

There is a moment in my life where I made a huge mistake. I trusted the wrong person. And this was after I had already gone through everything in Italy. And I hated myself for that mistake. Girl, I could not forgive myself. Because you would think. You would think after everything that I had been through, I would have known better not to trust this person.

Kim:

This is the Kim Gravel Show. Hello, y'all. Welcome to the Kim Gravel Show. My guest today has lived through a. A literal nightmare. I mean, imagine that you're living in some foreign country, and you discover that your roommate has been brutally murdered in your apartment. And then you are arrested and thrown in jail for committing that murder. But you didn't do it.

Kim:

And you try to tell the police, but they get you to sign a false confession. You're in jail for four years. Listen to it. Four years before you're ultimately vindicated and released. That is exactly what happened to my guest today. But she has turned her mess, and that's a big old mess, y'all, into a message in her new book, the Search for Meaning. My Search for Meaning, y'all. Please welcome the one and only Amanda Knox.

Amanda Knox:

I don't think I've ever had a singing chorus introduction.

Kim:

Listen, we spare no excuse.

Amanda Knox:

That was very special.

Kim:

Okay, so I have been chomping at the bit to talk to you because I remember everything about you. Your trial. How long did your trial last? Didn't it last, like, for eternity? It sounded like forever.

Amanda Knox:

Well, and in fact, you know, I have been fighting the last little legal remnants up through this year, so that would make it 18 years. But the murder charge, those big, scary charges that had me facing a potential life sentence in prison, I was fighting those for nearly eight years.

Kim:

Okay, you gotta go back to the beginning. Let's go back to the beginning. Give us those who think they know the story. You know what I'm saying? Like, everybody thinks they know the story, because honestly, the media says one story, then everybody else has another story, and then there's the truth. So I just want you to kind of set us up. You were how old when you went to Italy? Because this happened in Italy.

Amanda Knox:

Yes, this happened in Italy. And you're right. I love how you say that the media has crafted a story around this. And, you know, I. I think that my case has been a really great example of how the media is incentivized, potentially in bad ways to get stories out before they actually get the correct information. And that's also in part due to the fact that there's a certain kind of relationships that media professionals have with law enforcement that is potentially biasing them. So you're right, there were many, many stories going around. I was a 20 year old girl who.

Amanda Knox:

American girl from Seattle, Washington. I was a University of Washington student and I was going to study abroad in this small town in Italy called Perugia. And the stories that went out there were a couple. I mean, it depended on what outlets that you had access to. But one of those stories was American Girl Gone Wild, High on drug, Foxy Noxy, High on drugs, obsessed with sex, having infinite affairs, decides to murder her roommate in a sex game gone wrong. That's one story that you heard. That you heard. Yes.

Kim:

And I'm assuming that is not the truth.

Amanda Knox:

Well, yes, yes, very. Yes, that is also. That is not the truth. Another story that you might have heard was poor American Girl, who is clearly on the autism spectrum, gets caught up in this, you know, in this overwhelming situation because she's so naive and confused and probably just is not functioning normally. And she's very likely innocent, but also kind of at fault for her own wrongful conviction because of how strange and weird she is. And that's another sort of story that got out there that I, that was misrepresentative of reality. I think the more interesting and true story was one that highlights just the very fact of how flawed everyone, everyone involved in this story was and that how human, human frailty became an important role in this story. And it's, I think the big thing that I wanted to put out there is so much of the explanatory burden of how my wrongful conviction happened fell upon me in the same way that so much of the explanatory burden of what happened to Meredith fell upon me.

Amanda Knox:

People were looking at me and saying, oh, she's not crying enough, therefore she knows something about the crime. Or, you know, there's. There's this famous image that you probably saw of me outside of my, you know, house where the crime had just occurred. We, the Meredith's room had just been broken into. Her body was just discovered and I'm standing outside sort of being held by my boyfriend at the time. And he gives me like three little kisses to sort of comfort me in this moment of like, me being like, oh my God, what's going on? And, and those three seconds of my life were, are the most viewed and judged seconds of my life that I like, there's no way that I could. That's. That sort of encapsulates the entire story is this hyper fixation on Me from the very beginning, and in particular upon my sexuality.

Amanda Knox:

My, my being a. A young woman who was, you know, sexually liberated and how that, how that played into what ultimately was a, a fantasy about what had happened in this crime.

Kim:

I'm just sitting here thinking to myself as a 20 year old, because it's been a long time since I've been 20, but I, I can, I can't, I can't. I can't imagine. Like, at that point when you were standing outside when the murder had happened, did you have any clue that A, who did it and B, that you would be accused of it?

Amanda Knox:

Absolutely not.

Kim:

What's going through your head at those moments?

Amanda Knox:

Well, actually, what was going on in my head in those moments in particular was what is going on?

Kim:

Yeah. Okay.

Amanda Knox:

Because I didn't even know for sure what was happening. I.

Kim:

Did you find her?

Amanda Knox:

No, I did not find her body. So I actually never saw her body. I only ever saw the crime scene photos later over the course of the trial. But I came home and found that my house was broken into. And I called the police for help. I called my roommates. I couldn't get in touch with two of my roommates, Meredith and Laura. I had another roommate as well.

Amanda Knox:

That's something that people don't know is there were other roommates in this scenario. And so I invited all these people, the police, my roommates, to come home and help me figure out if anything had been stolen. Like there was clearly a break in and I couldn't open Meredith's door. And so eventually the police came and they broke down her door and discovered her body. But I was not there in front of her room as they broke down the door. It was in this little hallway. And so all I heard all of a sudden was a bunch of people screaming in Italian. And I could not make out what was.

Amanda Knox:

What was going on. I got a word here and there. So I was trying to piece it together. And as I pieced it together over the course of that morning, just, you know, talking to people and asking Rafaeli to translate for me, Rafaele being my boyfriend at the time, I pieced together that there was a body in Meredith's room. It was covered by a blanket, so they weren't sure exactly who it was, but there was know, blood everywhere and there was clearly a murder scene. And I remember thinking in that moment, oh my God, I could be dead right now. Because it was just.

Kim:

That could be you, right?

Amanda Knox:

That could be me. Because it was just a fluke that I wasn't at home that night. Like, I had met my boyfriend Rafaele, five days before this crime occurred. And so if I hadn't met him, and it was me and Meredith going to a classical music concert just kind of on a whim. And that's when I met him. If I hadn't gone with her to that concert, I never would have met him, and then I would have been home that night, and then I would have been dead. And that's, you know, when I talk about, in my book Free, about processing this experience and realizing I have this chapter in the book called Two Sides of the Same Coin, where I think about how Meredith and I were two young women who were studying abroad. We even had similar interests.

Amanda Knox:

We wanted to go into journalism. We liked to write. We were both studying Italian because it's a beautiful language. And fate flipped a coin where I was on one side and she was on the other. And I got to be the fortunate one who survived and got to go home. And I carry that with me. You know, I know that the world sort of associates her death with my identity, and I've really struggled with that for a long time. And the way that I'm able to carry that now, which is what I talk about in the book, is how I know that she fought for her life.

Amanda Knox:

You could tell from the crime scene she had fought for her life. And if I'm privileged enough to have my life, then I'm going to fight for my life, too, because that's all we can do, is to fight to live the best life that we can. And. But it took me a long time to really grapple with that, because the messaging that I received over the course of my experience on trial, but also even after I came home, which is what I talk about a lot in the book, is how my identity was sort of cast. Like, I was made to feel guilty that I had lived. I was made to feel guilty that I could continue to have good things happen to me in my life, that I could get married, that I could have children. The messages that I received from people who were like, how, you know, how dare you? You know, who will never get to have children? Meredith, you know, are people reaching out when they found out that I was pregnant to say, we hope that your baby gets murdered so that you know what Meredith's mother feels?

Kim:

Okay. Okay, Amanda, that is. Let me just say this. That makes me angry, you know, because this is the thing. You lost a lot of your life, too, girl. Okay? Like, you lost a lot of your life. And I'm not saying anything about Meredith's. Meredith, if she could probably come back, she would say, live.

Kim:

You know, I bet you anything. Cause it sounds like you and her were very tight friends. When did you know, okay, I'm in trouble? Like, where was the point where you thought, oh, my gosh, Was it during the interrogation? Was it during the questioning? When did that click into you, go, oh, my God, they think I murdered this woman?

Amanda Knox:

You know, it's interesting. It unfolded over time because I was so unprepared to be accused of this crime that it was. It was just utterly inconceivable. So the first time I realized, oh, no, something is going wrong.

Kim:

Okay. Yeah.

Amanda Knox:

Was during my interrogation. Like, my final interrogation. So the final. So the final interrogation. Yes.

Kim:

Okay.

Amanda Knox:

So to be clear, I was questioned a lot over the course of the five day. Oh, yes, that day, I believe I was questioned for around 11 hours. I was in the police station, either answering questions or waiting to be answered questions for about 11 hours. And then the. The following days were just hours after hours after hours. And I remember at the time, think, feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of time that I was being asked questions and repeatedly asked, like, the same questions over and over again by police officers. But as I understood it at the time and what was conveyed to me by the police was that I was just a very important witness to them. I lived with Mary.

Kim:

So there was no blaming. There was no. At that point, you had no clue, they're coming for me?

Amanda Knox:

No, I did not. I did not know that they had already tapped my phone, that they had. You know, they didn't tap anyone else's phone. They tapped. From the very beginning, they tapped my phone and only my phone. So they clearly.

Kim:

So you feel like you were targeted?

Amanda Knox:

I absolutely was targeted. I think the evidence shows that from the beginning, I was a person of interest for the police. They did not convey that to me. However, what they conveyed to me was that I was a very important witness. I was a friend of Meredith's. I lived with her. I came home and discovered the crime scene. I was the one who called the police.

Amanda Knox:

I called the police, or at least I had my boyfriend call the police, because it's not the same thing in Italy as in the US I didn't actually know how to call the police at the time. So I had to go and get my boyfriend to come with me to check out this. This scene and call the police for me. So we called the police together, and I assumed that made sense to me. That made sense that why I was being asked to respond to the police's questions and to go back with them to the crime scene. Like, all of these things, you were.

Kim:

The first on the scene.

Amanda Knox:

Exactly. And so I. Even though I was utterly exhausted after many days of being at their disposal, it made sense to me why I was doing it. And I was glad to do it because, honestly, I was afraid there might be a serial killer on the loose. And I was afraid, like, my family was telling me, like, what if this is a person who has been stalking your house and is targeting you? Like, are you safe? You should come home? And at least.

Kim:

So you never had a clue that you were being investigated or being, you know, tapped as a suspect?

Amanda Knox:

No.

Kim:

Ever?

Amanda Knox:

I did not. No. And even when I was being interrogated, they never explicitly accused me of killing Meredith. They accused me of knowing who had killed Meredith and hiding him. So something that my prosecutor has admittedly said is that no one, none of the police and him, he who led the investigation, my prosecutor, Juliana Manini, no one believed that the breakin that had happened in our house was real. They thought it was fake, and therefore that someone in the house was covering for someone who had. Who had committed this crime, who would otherwise have access to the house. And they had narrowed it down immediately to me as being the one who was covering it up.

Amanda Knox:

And they just wanted to know who I was covering for. And they had a. They had a. A small, like, clue, which was they found African American or African hair on Meredith's body. And so they said, somebody of African descent is involved. Amanda is covering for them. We need to find out who it is. And when they brought me in for my final interrogation, it was 10:30 at night that I arrived at the police station.

Amanda Knox:

I was brought in for questioning. And I was told that everything I thought I knew to be true about my. My memories about the night that this occurred, that I had spent the night with my boyfriend, and we had watched a movie, and we had read a book, and we had dinner. All of that was not real. They told me that my memories were false and that I had imagined new memories to cover up for the fact that. That I had witnessed something so horrible that my mind was trying to blank it out. And they told me that I would spend 30 years in prison if I did not remember my true memories. And they found this text message on my phone between me and my then boss.

Amanda Knox:

At the time, I was working part time at a local pub for a African man named Patrick. And the minute they saw that I had A text message between him and me the night of the murder. They assumed that he was the murderer, especially after I, you know, they asked me to describe him and I said, well, he has, you know, he's a black man. He has dreads. He's about this tall. They said, okay, we have our murderer. And then they relentlessly interrogated me, bullied me, screamed at me, lied to me, hit me, until I started to believe what they were saying was true. And I didn't believe it for very long.

Amanda Knox:

I believed it for a span of a few hours. Like, I genuinely thought I must have been so traumatized that I didn't even remember. And, yes, and then after they finally let me sleep, the second I woke up, I realized, oh, my God, I did. Like, none of that is real. None of that is true. I didn't witness anything. And I tried to recant, but they wouldn't let me do a new declaration.

Kim:

They bullied you. They bullied you into it.

Amanda Knox:

And, yeah, and then I asked for it because they wouldn't let me make an official recantation. I asked for a piece of paper to write down a recantation. But by then it was too late. They had what they wanted. They arrested me and my boyfriend and my boss, Patrick, and brought us to prison. And it was the worst, scariest experience of my life. Like, way worse than getting the conviction. Way worse than any of the days that I spent in prison, because it was the only time in my life where I ever felt like my sanity had cracked.

Amanda Knox:

I did not know what was real or not. I was so scared. I was so confused. And it was the worst day of my life. And it's something that to this day, I have to battle because, you know, I talk about this in the book, where people don't understand false confessions. They don't understand what it feels like to be put into a scenario where you are lied to and bullied and screamed at. Because so much of this happens behind closed doors without any record. And in fact, the police did not record my interrogation and they did not give me an attorney.

Amanda Knox:

Like the European Court of Human Rights ruled in my favor, saying that my human rights had been violated. But nevertheless, after even I got out and I was acquitted of murder, everything, there was this lasting suspicion, right? There was this idea that, like, she's the girl accused of murder, and even if we don't know how or why she was involved, even if we have no evidence that she was involved, she must be involved somehow, because no innocent person behaves that way. And it's really. It's. It's a huge burden that a lot of wrongfully convicted people face as they re. Enter into society. Not just me, like other wrongly convicted people who carry the stigma of the accusation because so much about the criminal legal process is not really understood commonly. And so it's something I try to shed light on because I felt so alone.

Amanda Knox:

I write about this in the book of how alone I felt when I came home feeling like I wanted just my life back. I wanted my life back. And there was my life, like, of being an anonymous college student was gone. There was no forever. I was forever the girl accused of murder. And I felt like I didn't belong to the rest of humanity before. And I was afraid that I would be explaining myself to the rest of humanity forever, forever attempting to prove my innocence for something that I had nothing to do with. And it was so.

Amanda Knox:

So. I mean.

Kim:

I hear it in your voice still. Like, I hear it. And, you know, it's. I mean, I love the fact that you have now taken this horrible, horrific thing. And, you know, I'm a person of faith, so I believe all things work together for the good. And you are working together for the good. You're taking your mess and making it your message. But did you ever feel. And there's people listening to us right now, they might even be going, did she do it? Is she.

Kim:

You know what I'm saying? Like, you're saying people always associate you with this. She had to know something. Do you ever feel like that false confession, that you betrayed yourself? Because I'll say this, I have felt that in my life, when I'm doing something or I'm pressured to do something, I have many things in my life like that. And I made. And I was like, oh, my gosh, why did I do that? Do you ever feel like. Like looking back, hindsight's 20 20, right? Is there ever a time where you think, why did I confess?

Amanda Knox:

You know, that's a really interesting question because for a long time I did blame myself for that interrogation. I thought it was because I was a coward or because my Italian wasn't good enough. And I didn't understand what was being said to me. And it wasn't until later, much later, that I was approached by an expert in false confessions, a psychology professor from John Jay University, who explained to me how interrogation methods are used to systematically break down the will, and not just the will, but also bend the subject's relationship with reality through lying so that they get the outcome that they want, whether you, whether you're participating or not. It's a very effective psychological method that police are allowed to employ. The problem is, is that it is effective on guilty and innocent people alone.

Kim:

Right.

Amanda Knox:

And it is very, very highly likely to result in these false positives, these innocent people confessing to crimes they didn't commit. So as soon as I, I realized that this was not a thing that was unique to me.

Kim:

Right.

Amanda Knox:

I was. The relief that swept over me was tremendous. But I will say, you know, my, my new book is very different from my old book. You know, Waiting to Be Heard was written in almost kind of in response to the fact that I was being, I was on trial. And it was almost like my testimony to the world of being on trial. And it was a very important book for a very important time. This new book is a, is an interesting book because I do not feel like it is a response to the outside world. It is not.

Amanda Knox:

I don't feel like it is a reactionary book. It is a very proactive book where I am sharing things that I don't have to necessarily share with people. And one of those things is the misadventures and mistakes that I made after I got out. And they are mistakes that I made in part because of what happened to me in Italy. And I wanted people to know. You asked me. The reason I'm getting to this is because there is a moment in my life where I made a huge mistake. I trusted the wrong person.

Amanda Knox:

And this was after I had already gone through everything in Italy. And I hated myself for that mistake. Girl, I could not forgive myself. Because you would think, you would think after everything that I had been through, I would have known better not to trust this person.

Kim:

Yes.

Amanda Knox:

And I made, I, I, I went against my family who had always been with me. I was defending this person. And, and, and I ended up in a very, very scary scenario.

Kim:

Wow.

Amanda Knox:

And I was afraid to call the police because one, the last time I called the police for help, they threw me in a jail cell. Correct. But two, I was still on trial at the time, and I could not have it be. I had to be perfect while I was on trial. I could not make mistakes. And so this really, really bad mistake that I made, I couldn't risk asking for help because it would expose me. And it's, it was one of the hardest things for me to process and accept as, as something that I really did and that spoke to, to me about me and, and how truly naive I really was. I thought I had learned all these amazing lessons In Italy from this experience.

Amanda Knox:

And then. I know, but, like, you know, Gonzalo.

Kim:

I know, but, girl, I'm just sitting here thinking. I mean, you were so young and alone and scared and the strength that you have. I mean, you are truly free. Like, you know what that word means? There's many of us, and look, we're all in our prisons. We're all in jail in some way or another. I'm not kidding you. Like, I mean. I mean, you've been in literal jail, which I can't even imagine what that was like.

Kim:

I mean, I mean, in a foreign country, you know, American jails are one thing, but you're, you know, you're so far away from your family. But what gave you the will and the fortitude, the confidence? Because you had to have some kind of confidence and would just to withstand all of this and stand through this.

Amanda Knox:

Really great question. I think it's so interesting that you mentioned the word confidence. I know that that's a very powerful word for you, that. It's funny, my husband says that the one thing that I could have more of is confidence, which is interesting because, you know, I do doubt myself. It's my automatic impulse is to doubt myself. It's one of the reasons why I was so vulnerable and suggestible by the police is because when they know, lied to me, I started to doubt myself and to think, oh, maybe they're right and I'm wrong. How. Like, that's a very, you know, that's a automatic thing that I think a lot of women can relate to potentially.

Amanda Knox:

Potentially is like yourself. And. But the one thing that I do know is that I am. I can endure.

Kim:

Come on.

Amanda Knox:

So it's like, that is something that I know deep down in my bones is that I can endure. And there's something I remember. I had a very good relationship with the Catholic priest who worked in the prison. His name was Don Saolo. And as someone who is not of faith, I remember having really interesting philosophical conversations with him because he ultimately would derive a lot of his, you know, life affirming, love affirming philosophy from this, like, deep down core belief in an omnipotent, benevolent God.

Kim:

I get it.

Amanda Knox:

And when I questioned that and said, well, what if there isn't? Where do I derive my life affirming love affirming philosophy? I remember he attempted to communicate some really interesting ideas to me. He always talked in metaphors. And the one that really spoke to me was when he said, when you pray for strength, God does not give you strength. He gives you the opportunity to be strong. And that really hit me because what that meant was that whether this was. This situation was given to me by God or by the random chaos of the universe, be that as it may, it was an opportunity to be strong, to rise to the challenge. And I don't know, I mean, maybe I have to blame my soccer coach from back in the day for, like, always just like, drilling us to, like, go as hard as humanly possible. I was the kind of kid who always would think, I think I can.

Amanda Knox:

I think I can. I think I can just to get through one step at a time. And at a certain point in my, you know, my time, in fact, I talk about this in the epiphany chapter of my new book because there was this interesting shift in perspective of everything leading up to the verdict versus after. There was a big shift in perspective leading up to the verdict. I truly believed that I was just living somebody else's life by mistake. And I was just waiting to get my life back. And then after the verdict, after the 26 year sentence, I had to. I had this like, really sudden shift of realizing, oh, this is not.

Amanda Knox:

I'm not in limbo. I'm not waiting to live.

Kim:

This is it.

Amanda Knox:

This is it. Like, this is my life, and I'm either gonna live it or I'm not. And I, you know, I very. I very seriously thought about suicide. But then, like, the. The Once I had sort of acknowledged to myself that that was not the route that I wanted to take, I then had to take responsibility for how the. How I was going to live my life. If I was really genuinely choosing to live, then it was on me to choose how to live.

Amanda Knox:

And that was a very big shift for me. And it was a very important shift for me because it made it so that I was no longer sort of looking down this dark tunnel at this light waiting for me. And I was just sort of waiting for the light to come to me. No, I had to. I was in a. I. I shifted it to be like, I'm in a very dark room and I have to make my own light.

Kim:

You have to be the light. You have to be light.

Amanda Knox:

I can't just wait for it to come to me.

Kim:

I love the word endure. I want to say something because there's somebody listening right now that's going through something that is really tough and not to the level I'm sure. I don't know. Pain is pain.

Amanda Knox:

You never know.

Kim:

You never know. I mean, sickness, illness, financial. Maybe they're facing a prison sentence. I don't know. I'm just saying that people are listening to you right now. What made you endure? Like, what gave you that inner strength? Because I think. I think it is connected to confidence. I think confidence, the surface.

Kim:

And I think you drill it down, it is strength and endurance. What gave you that? It's such a young age when the circumstances were stacked against you.

Amanda Knox:

That's a great question. If I'm genuinely honest, I think that. I think the fact that I knew that my. I knew deep down in my bones that my life had value.

Kim:

Come on, Amanda.

Amanda Knox:

Well, but I knew that.

Kim:

That's so good.

Amanda Knox:

Well, I knew that because I was fortunate to be very, very loved from, Like, I never, ever questioned whether or not my family loved me. Like, and I know that I am very fortunate to be in that position. Like, the. I talk about this in the book. The women that I met in prison, how they had been neglected and victims of crime long before they had ever committed crimes themselves. And I realized that even though I was the innocent person in prison, I was actually the lucky one, because I had a family that was coming and visiting me and sending me letters. I had attorneys who were fighting the case for me. I was not forgotten.

Amanda Knox:

And so many, like, all of these women around me did not have that. And so, in a weird way, even, like, the weird media fixation on me, which was there for all the wrong reasons, was a sort of. Even an expression of that my life had value, even if it was just for their paycheck. Like, no, no, it's true. That makes sense. That makes sense. I knew that my life had value, and therefore I could not throw it away, and that I was the one who was solely responsible for giving this life, that I had any kind of meaning. And at the time.

Amanda Knox:

At the time, it was a very limited meeting. Like, meaning, right? Like, I did not have many options in a prison cell.

Amanda Knox:

Like, it was a very humbling experience of what could I accomplish in my life within these confines? However, I was able to find every day something worth living for.

Kim:

How did you do that, Amanda? How did you do that? Because so many people really have no hope. I can't tell you how many times I talk to people, and they just say, like, what's the point? How did you find meaning?

Amanda Knox:

Well, I think that if I'm, like, unofficially therapizing someone, I would ask them, what is it that hurts? Like, tell me about what hurts. Because hurting is information. Anger is information. Sadness is information. It need not define you, but it is real and it is worth looking at. And so I would say instead of running away from the things that make you angry or make you sad or make you hurt, I recommend looking directly at them and seeing them clearly so that you can then see what your true options are. This is something I talk about. I have a lot of.

Amanda Knox:

I've learned a lot from becoming a part of my Zen Buddhist community here on my little island on Vashan, where we do a bunch of meditating about the impermanence of existence and all of that. But one of the things that I find really resonates with me is there's this idea of the way life should be, and then there is the way life really is, is. And when.

Kim:

Say that again twice, that is so true.

Amanda Knox:

There's the way that life should be, right? And then there's the way that life really is, right? And if you can torture yourself like you can, the levels like there's. There's pain in life is inevitable, suffering is not. And the difference between the two is pain is just something causes you pain. You stub your toe, you lose your daughter to an accident like this causes you pain that is real. You are not crazy to feel pain for that. What is potentially crazy inducing is then further punishing yourself or causing yourself to suffer by fixating on the fact that that pain shouldn't exist, it shouldn't have happened. And therefore you're sort of living in this reality where it is even more painful because you've added a meta layer of pain on top of it, and it's making you an ineffective agent in the world. Because if you're fixated on the way life should be, you don't know how to interact with the way that life really is.

Amanda Knox:

And so, I mean, figuring that out for myself has been, again, this, like, long journey. Because like I said, when I came home from prison, I really, truly believed that I was going to get back the life that I should, should have been living. And then I got a very rude awakening that that life didn't exist. And so I had to ask myself once again, how do I make this life worth living? And how do I stop reacting to bad things that are happening to me? How do I. How do I plant roots? How do I define myself proactively in the world so that I'm not just constantly, you know, running away from things that are scary or responding to accusations that are thrown at me? How do I, as someone who is like, thrown into a pit, how do I get out and start climbing the mountain?

Kim:

You Took your authorship back of your life? Because it sounds like to me, everybody else was writing your story. Like, the media, you know, even the police, even everybody was writing your story, and it sounds like you took that back. Did you ever blame anyone for what happened to you? Do you still?

Amanda Knox:

I mean, I.

Kim:

Okay, there's a story. That's a whole nother podcast right there. I can tell by that laugh.

Amanda Knox:

Well, so. So, yes, in the sense that, like, there were other people who had agency and power in this equation, who made choices. And first and foremost was the young man who raped and murdered my roommate. His name is Rudy. Good day.

Kim:

Oh, so they found him.

Amanda Knox:

They found him. We know he committed this crime. His DNA was all over Meredith's body, all over the crime scene. He has served his time in prison. He was only sentenced to 16 years. He got out after 13, and he is now under. He's on trial again for sexually assaulting someone, a new person, since getting out of prison. So that is a real person who had real agency, who made choices that had a ripple effect and impacted Meredith and her family, but also rippled out and affected me and my family and my boyfriend and his family and Patrick and his family.

Amanda Knox:

And I would argue even the whole city of Perugia, all of it, like, this whole world was sort of impacted by that horrific loss and that horrific choice. And so there was that person who. Yeah, I blame him. I blame him for making that choice. And I don't feel bad about that. I know that I can't control him and control his choices. I can try to make sense of them. That one's a difficult thing to make sense of, but the one that I have been more interested in, and I talk about this in Free, is the why, why me? Question.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah, because I, you know, I escaped being murdered by. By a fluke accident, but then I entered into. I be. I was, you know, I was an indirect victim of crime. Someone broke into my home and raped and murdered my roommate. So I was a victim of crime. But then I became a victim of the criminal justice system. And that.

Amanda Knox:

That question of why, why did that happen? Why me? Why this fixation on me and from whom? That was something that really bothered me for a long time, and I was never really satisfied with the ideas that were being put forward to me. Like, just like Rudy. Good day. Made a very evil choice because he's unhinged or psychopathic in some way. Your prosecutor, Giuliano Magnini, is a psychopath who made an unhinged choice, and he didn't care if he was hurting anybody, he just was an evil guy who did an evil thing. And I could not believe that, like, as much as, like, my family held to that and my supporters held to that. I could not imagine this man sitting in his office, you know, putting his little Mr. Burns fingers together, drumming, cackling and cackling about putting an innocent girl in prison.

Amanda Knox:

I thought it was more complicated than that. I truly believed that he thought he was doing the right thing. And so the question was, why did he think that? And that led me down this very, very interesting journey that I talk about in the book, about reaching out to my prosecutor specifically to ask him why.

Kim:

Oh, Amanda, you gotta read the book. Did you get the answer?

Amanda Knox:

Well, without giving it away, I got some very. So, yes, in the sense that I got some very revelatory answers from him.

Kim:

You got closure.

Amanda Knox:

I discovered over the course of communicating with him that I didn't need him to have closure. I had had this idea in my mind that in order for me to be okay, I had to get something from him. I had to get him to admit that he was wrong or that he was sorry or just, you know, like, whenever somebody hurts you, the thing you want to know is that they recognize that they hurt you and they're not going to do it again and they're not going to do it to someone else. You get that acknowledgment? Well, I got some. Yes, read the book. But I got some very interesting things. I didn't get some things, but I got others that I never would have anticipated. And I think that comes from being willing to approach a person not from a place of adversity.

Kim:

Anger.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah, and anger, but by genuinely trying, like, by genuine. Having genuine curiosity for a person. Curiosity is my big C word. Yours is confidence, Mine is curiosity. And I think that what ultimately results from curiosity, if you're genuinely curious about a person and you. And you put yourself in a position to witness them, I think that all people ultimately reveal who they are if you just. If you just pay attention. By putting myself in a position to witness and pay attention to him, I came to understand him.

Amanda Knox:

And by understanding him, I inevitably came to have compassion for him. Because I think that as soon as you understand someone, all of that, like, anger and resentment and hatred, it doesn't go away. But it is informed by all of this other stuff about a real human being, that if you have any level of empathy you feel once you understand them. And so I came away from this experience with an without, like, with this unexpected Ability to empathize with him. That was not my intention going forward. Like, beginning that whole conversation.

Kim:

Oh, I could think of a few intentions that I would think that were nothing like empathy and compassion.

Amanda Knox:

Right. I had every reason to be angry and defensive and demanding.

Kim:

Because if I was your mother, I would have like.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah. And I talk about this in the book, about how becoming a mother sort of flipped a switch in me as well, because suddenly I was able to empathize with my mom in ways that I couldn't before. Like, I had always sort of put myself in Meredith's shoes, But now, suddenly, I could put myself in Meredith's mother's shoes, and I could put myself in my mom's shoes. And so I knew, especially by not just corresponding with this man, but by going back to Italy to meet him, I was potentially re. Traumatizing my own mother by doing so. And I had to. I think that one of the most loving things that my mom has always done for me is she has believed in me even when she has not understood. And this is a great example of.

Amanda Knox:

She knew that it meant a lot to me to go back to Italy to sit face to face with this man who had put me in prison. She did not understand it. She did not approve of it. She tried to convince me not to do it, but when it ultimately came down to it, she supported me, and she came with me. She accompanied me on that journey.

Kim:

Well, she certainly wasn't gonna let you go by yourself.

Amanda Knox:

Yes, that's true. That's true. I think she's made it a sort of unspoken rule that I'm not allowed to enter into Italy without her from now on. And you know what? I'm cool with that. I could always use my mom around, especially in that place. And, you know, she now has relationships with people in Italy because of this. Like, I didn't just spend four years locked up in Italy. So did my family.

Kim:

Oh, God.

Amanda Knox:

So.

Kim:

And probably hundreds of thousands of dollars later.

Amanda Knox:

Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. The financial burden on my family was. I mean, I'm grateful that my attorneys have always been very understanding about, like, spacing out payments and. And having patience about when things come in.

Amanda Knox:

But the. And we've always had a plan. My dad, who's a spreadsheets guy, was. Worked very well with our. With one of our attorneys, but it was an incredible burden. And while my family was both defending me, they were also trying to gather funds in order to pay for independent forensic review. You know, like, all of this stuff costs money. Even just understanding what was happening cost money because they couldn't speak Italian.

Amanda Knox:

Right. So, like, there's the language barrier. So any, like, documents that came in, they had to get translated. So it was. It was just a. You know, my family should write a story about how to save your daughter, because I don't even know all the stuff that they had to do.

Kim:

It's instinctual. I'm sure it just, like, clicked in because you send your daughter to study abroad and what an experience. What a once in a lifetime moment. And bam, you are in the middle of the biggest news cycle news story in the entire world, not just Italy, but you're talking. When the American press got it, bam, it was over. You've got to go get the book. My search for meaning. The book is just simply called Free.

Kim:

And Amanda, you are free as a bird in more ways than one girl. Like, not just your physicality, but it sounds like how many people. I mean, because everybody is not, you know, facing what you faced, but I think everybody can relate to a prison in one way or another.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Because one of my big goals in writing this book was, first of all realizing that what I had went. What I've gone through, while it is, first of all, not unique, but it is pretty extreme, I think it's very extreme.

Kim:

It's basically.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah, there are. There is universal revelant or, like, resonance, though. Like, there's. There are things that I learned that are applicable to anyone. Everybody, really. It's. It's really truly like when you feel like you are not the protagonist of your own life. You're.

Amanda Knox:

You're the pawn of someone else's story. Like when. When you feel trapped and you feel like there's no way out. Like, all of these problems that I faced, both like, literally and figuratively, I feel have a resonance for other people's lives. And I've only come to discover that because people have come to me and said, hearing about how you got through this, that and that really helped me get through this, that and that. And I've. I've been really blessed to. To realize that what was at first an extremely isolating and ostracizing experience was actually something that ultimately connected me with people.

Amanda Knox:

So I'm just trying to share all the things that I've learned in the hopes that other people can learn from my misadventures.

Kim:

They will.

Amanda Knox:

And they'll relate. Yeah. And feel less alone, I think. Feel more understood and less alone.

Kim:

Okay, Amanda, you have to come back.

Amanda Knox:

You have to Come back.

Kim:

I just love you. But first, before you go, I do this thing called Rapid Fire. I'm just gonna ask you, like, four or five questions. I don't want you to think about it. What comes up comes out. Okay?

Amanda Knox:

Just. It might be Italian, so we'll see.

Kim:

I don't even wanna hear Italian. I'm so mad about all that. I can't. Rapid fire questions. Okay. What was your favorite song? If you could name your favorite song throughout that whole entire thing? Did you listen to anything or hear anything that got you through?

Amanda Knox:

Yeah, there's a really incredible song by Regina Spector called Aproi Moi, and there's a beautiful lyric in it where it's like she talks about how her life is not her own and it's not her choice to live it. And that just really resonated with me in a moment of, like, pain. And there's, like, a gritty sort of angriness to that song that sort of gave me an edge to, like, you know. You know how, like, a sort of angry song helps you, like, run a little bit harder.

Kim:

Right.

Amanda Knox:

That was one that would get me through a really tough day.

Kim:

Okay, I'm gonna go listen to that for sure. I'm downloading. What is the craziest false thing that the media said about you?

Amanda Knox:

Well, that I was in a threesome with. With a murderer. So, you know, that's a big one.

Kim:

Like a male fantasy that some dude wrote that article.

Amanda Knox:

Thank you, thank you. Thank you for noticing that, because that is something that has always bothered me about. This is. It's like some dude.

Kim:

Yeah.

Amanda Knox:

Just had a sex fantasy murder scenario and wrote me into it. He did.

Kim:

That's exactly what happened.

Amanda Knox:

It is gross. It is not just horrible, it is also gross. So thank you.

Kim:

And it's just. It's like, where did that come from? It's just. I. But I hear you. Things like that just get made up. I've had that happen to me before. Okay, what is one skill that you picked up when you were in prison?

Amanda Knox:

Well, besides becoming fluent in Italian, I learned how to belly dance.

Kim:

What? They had belly dance classes?

Amanda Knox:

No, they absolutely did not have belly dance classes. However, there were young women who were from the Romani tribes who all learned, who knew how to belly dance. And so I was taught how to belly dance.

Kim:

Do you keep in touch with anyone from Italy during your experiences?

Amanda Knox:

Well, certainly, Don. So I don't. Who is the prison priest? I'm still pen pals with Giuliano Mignini. He was texting me earlier and Then I had an American cellmate who I'm friends with and who comes to Thanksgiving every year, so.

Kim:

Oh, my. Amanda.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah. And obviously Rafaele as well. Rafaele, who is my co defendant, my boyfriend of five days, who, who went through this whole journey with me. We are still in contact.

Kim:

Well, I asked my followers to just ask questions, and I thought this was a brilliant question. And it comes from Linda, and she says, what advice do you have for parents with children studying abroad?

Amanda Knox:

Well, I think one of the really fortunate things about the world today that we didn't have when I was studying Abroad back in 2007 is the ability to stay in contact. I, you know, I didn't have Internet in my house. Like, I had to go to an Internet cafe even to just send an email to my family. And so it was a lot harder to just stay in contact. And so when there were those little red flags, like, oh, I'm spending a lot of time with the cops, I wonder why. Like, those are little red flag moments that if I had been able to better communicate with my family in that time period, I might have made different choices and gone back home or gone to my family that lived in Germany or, um, at the same time, I think one of the biggest pieces of advice that I give people, especially in terms of study abroad, is definitely do it. Like, study abroad is a beautiful experience. And to be immersed in another culture and in another language is such an important part of, like, developing as a human being and understanding that the world is a big and beautiful and multifaceted place.

Amanda Knox:

One thing to remember, though, is that when you are abroad, you are more vulnerable.

Kim:

Yes.

Amanda Knox:

And so because of that, your, your levels of red flag awareness need to go up. And if you, if you ever feel even uncomfortable, ask for help. Don't like, question yourself, just ask for help. There's no harm in it. And also, you're not less of an adult for doing so, because adults ask for. For help.

Kim:

Oh, I think that applies to everything. I mean, if you're going down to Target, if you're going, ask for help. Okay, favorite junk food. Salty and sweet. Please give me, like, real junk food, man, because I could tell you're in shape. You look real healthy. I want.

Amanda Knox:

I was just at the gym before junk food.

Kim:

Sweet and salty. Don't give me a kale chips. I don't want to hear that.

Amanda Knox:

Oh, no, I don't do kale chips. If I'm going to, like, eat a, if I'm going to eat a salad, I'm just going to Eat a giant salad. But favorite, salt, salty and sweet. Cause I'm not a sweets person. I do like dark chocolate. So I would say that counts, maybe. Yeah, that counts. So I would say salty, dark chocolate, drizzled potato chips.

Kim:

Dang, girl, you pulled that deep.

Amanda Knox:

That sounds delicious.

Kim:

I think I'm going to go pick some of those up on my way.

Amanda Knox:

Hook me up, Hook me up.

Kim:

All right. This is a fun one. Who is your celebrity crush?

Amanda Knox:

Oh, that's funny. So my husband says that his celebrity crush is me, but I think.

Kim:

How long y'all been married?

Amanda Knox:

We've been married since 2020. We got in right before the pandemic. So y'all been married a good.

Kim:

Well, not that long, cuz. Wait till, like, 25, then it'll be, I love you. Don't touch me.

Amanda Knox:

Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, it's kind of that way right now. We have two very small children. We have two very small children. So I'm constantly being touched.

Amanda Knox:

Const. Yeah. So, yeah. But my celebrity crush right now is Bo Burnham.

Kim:

Okay. Okay. You're the second guest. Who said that. You're the second guest on our show. Who said that?

Amanda Knox:

Really? Who was the other one?

Kim:

Gosh, it was, like, two years ago. Who was.

Amanda Knox:

Who said that? So I. I love talent. If there's, like, one thing that all the people that I have crushes on have in common, it's not the way they look. It's not how old they are. It is. Do they have just undeniable talent? And Bo Burnham has undeniable talent.

Kim:

Agreed.

Amanda Knox:

I've just been listening to his songs while riding, you know, getting on the elliptical quite a bit. So. Hi, Bo Burnham, if you're listening, I have a celebrity crush on you.

Kim:

Well, he's very tall. Tall is. Honey. He's very tall. This is our last question, but it's an important one. So what meaning have you discovered from writing this book? You know what I'm saying? Cause it's such a great book. I mean, everybody wants to be free, and a lot of us sometimes are in our own prison. What's next for you?

Amanda Knox:

What's next for me? Oh, my gosh. Well, I hope that. Because I think part of becoming free is creating your own freedom and not allowing yourself to be trapped into a little box. One thing that I would love for my life is the ability to have comedy play a more. A bigger role in it. So I tend to get as a journalist and as a writer, I tend to write about very personal things and about very serious things. But like, deep down, I'm a goofy theater kid and I love comedy. Again, goes back to my celebrity crush.

Amanda Knox:

So I would love to. I've been doing like, I've been dabbling in stand up and I would like to. So I would love to do that a lot more and have that play a more. A bigger role in my creative life. Yeah. And then just being a good mom. I just love being a mom.

Kim:

Honey, that's the hardest job you'll ever have. The most important, too. Someone said to me, being a mom is the best thing. I'm like, it's the best thing. It's the most important thing. It's probably the most, you know, most important thing you'll ever do. But it's like, I don't wake up going, yay, I get to cook and clean.

Amanda Knox:

Yeah. And then just be like, constantly groped.

Kim:

Constantly groped by everybody in the house. Okay, listen, you've got to go. Well, do this. Follow Amanda Knox. Follow her on Instagram, it's just Amanda Knox.

Amanda Knox:

Simply yes. So on Instagram, it's @Mamaknox, actually. On Blue sky and Twitter, it's at amanda knox or amandaknox.com and then of course, everything. If you want to find out anything about me whatsoever, just go to amandaknox.com.

Kim:

That'S well and go check it out. I'm telling you, the book is good. Her new book was just released last week and you can get it everywhere. Books and audiobooks are sold. It's called Free My Search for Meaning her podcast, I love you see it in the background? The labyrinth. Go check it out. I think it's with your husband. She's with your hubby, right? Oh, my gosh.

Kim:

We get to meet hubby too. And that Amanda, come back and be with us. You are so impactful and you're such a good hearted person. I can just tell, you know.

Amanda Knox:

Aw, thank you, Kim.

Kim:

You are a.

Amanda Knox:

Nice to meet you.

Kim:

You are confident.

Amanda Knox:

Well, thank you. I will tell my husband that.

Kim:

Tell him I said it. All right, girl.

Amanda Knox:

Thank you.

Kim:

Y'all go get the book. We love you so much. Till next time. I'm Kim.

Zac:
This is Zac. Bye. 

Kim:
The Kim Gravel Show is produced and edited by Zac Miller at Uncommon Audio. Our producer is Kathleen Grant from the Brunette Exec. Production help from  Emily Bredin and Sara Noto. Our cover art is designed by Sanaz Huber at Memarian Creative. Our show is edited by Mike Kligerman. Our guest intros are performed by Roxy Reese. Our guest booking is done by Central Talent Booking. Our ads are furnished by True Native Media. And y'all, I want to give a big huge thank you to the entire team at QVC+ and a special thank you to our audience for making this community so strong. If you are still listening then you must have liked a few episodes along the way. So tell somebody about it. Tell somebody about this show and join our mailing list at kimgravelshow.com. I cannot do this show without you and so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening. I hope you gain a little bit of encouragement, light and love love from watching and listening to The Kim Gravel Show. I love you all so much. Till next time. Bye.