Amanda Knox Profile picture
Jul 7, 2021 27 tweets 14 min read Read on X
I live in two overlapping worlds. In one, I’m seen as a monster. In the other, people value my work.

/ A thread.
One of these worlds is based in reality. The other is not, and yet that false world often feels stronger, ineradicable.
The day I was acquitted and released from prison, I thought I had escaped the labyrinth.
I thought I would return to the life that had been stolen from me…I quickly realized that life didn’t exist anymore.
I was no longer just me, a language nerd who liked poetry and rock climbing. I was the girl who was accused of murder.
And in millions of minds, I was not just accused, but guilty. I was redefined as a killer. My innocence didn’t change that.
When I was definitively acquitted by Italy’s highest court, I was freed from a physical prison...
...but not from the prison of infamy, not from the false identity as a drug-addled whore and killer.
The accusations and hate didn’t stop.
It’s been 4,993 days since I was first arrested. 4,993 consecutive days of hate.
For a while, I felt so, so lost. Entering freedom, I had landed in an entirely new labyrinth.
And inside, I had to discover who I was.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its…
What I’ve gone through is unique, but also...
...not unique at all. Plenty of people have been wrongfully convicted - mostly poor, disenfranchised men.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/exo…
And I’m not the first to be globally slut-shamed (shout out to @monicalewinsky)
I never asked for attention, for scrutiny, to be cast as a cardboard character in a morality play for tabloid readers and true crime junkies.
But here I am. Trying to figure out how to play the strange hand I’ve been dealt...

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
...to make the best of a bad situation, and put to work everything I’ve learned along the way...
...to practice the nuance and compassion and empathy that was denied me by those eager to vilify and punish.
So I’ve been building bridges, talking to victims and vilified men and women, advocating for criminal justice reform.
But the thing I’m most proud of is Labyrinths, the podcast I created with my novelist husband @manunderbridge. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this work and meet other survivors along the way.
And nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to know that I’ve reached someone.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its…
That someone else feels less alone in their own labyrinth.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mon…
It helps me shrug the hate off. To remember that it doesn’t define me.
I define me.
Season 2 of Labyrinths premieres today with episode 1 of a 5-part miniseries on infertility. In today’s episode, I bare my soul about my recent miscarriage.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inf…
I hope you’ll listen. And if you like the podcast, please consider supporting us! We’re independent and ad-free. If we had one supporter for every hundred cruel messages that come in, that would more than balance out the hate.

patreon.com/knoxrobinson

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More from @amandaknox

Mar 27
I remain wrongly convicted of slander in Italy, and loads of people still think I'm a killer despite my acquittal. I am at peace with this. I will also never stop fighting to clear my name.

This is a paradox. Embracing this paradox is a key that can free you from suffering.
/🧵
You must accept that the world is on fire and simultaneously try to douse the flames. You must accept that your life is perfect, with all its flaws and annoyances and griefs and burdens, and still strive to improve yourself and your circumstances.
Zen Master Suzuki Roshi put it this way: "Everything is perfect…and there’s plenty of room for improvement!" What does this mean? How could everything be "perfect" when there are wars and famines and rapes and murders, and myriad injustices that no one deserves?
Read 16 tweets
Mar 22
Before Italy, I was only vaguely aware of that ancient stereotype that all women secretly hate one another, that we are incapable of true friendship. Some call it “venimism”; others refer to “mean girls”.

/thread
In 1893, Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso wrote: “Due to women’s latent antipathy for one another, trivial events give rise to fierce hatreds...these occasions lead quickly to insolence and assaults.” The source of our antipathy? Sexual jealousy, of course.
We hate one another because we are ever competing for male attention. I always thought this misogynistic myth was obviously false. I had lots of girlfriends, from school and soccer; so did my sisters, my mom. But, then again, I also thought my innocence was obvious…
Read 12 tweets
Jan 24
I've been on trial half my life. Yesterday, my 18-year legal drama finally came to an end when the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court, definitively convicted me of criminal slander.

/thread
Many people are familiar with my wrongful conviction for Meredith Kercher’s murder, but this lesser charge, arising from statements I signed during my interrogation, is the one that has continued to haunt me.
The charge resulted from a lie invented by the police: that I was present when my roommate Meredith was sexually assaulted and murdered at our apartment in Perugia in 2007.
Read 25 tweets
Jan 19
I’m currently still on trial in Italy and I have a verdict coming in 4 days. The waiting is the hardest part. So I turn to my comforts, like Star Trek. You probably know that it’s always been a progressive show, but it’s also featured many wrongful convictions!

/thread
It’s not surprising that Star Trek would feature such stories. The original series broke ground in casting @NichelleIsUhura as Uhura and
@GeorgeTakei as Sulu. It was rare at the time for a Black woman and Asian man to be cast in positions of authority.
And of course, The Next Generation prominently featured a talented character with a disability,
@levarburton's Geordi La Forge. But what’s warmed my heart the most is that the Star Trek writers are so fond of wrongful conviction stories. Here’s a sampling!
Read 21 tweets
Jan 9
Rarely do I meet people whose compassion floors me. That’s the case with @ScarlettMLewis . She lost her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook tragedy, and it would have been easy for her to become angry and vengeful. But she took a different path. /
thread
In her first interview in the wake of her son’s murder, she said “I take my part of the responsibility for what happened to Jesse in his school.” Her sister told her, don’t you ever say that. It’s not your fault. And Scarlett said, “If I don’t, who will?”
She forgave the shooter, Adam Lanza, knowing that someone that could do something so heinous must have been in a tremendous amount of pain.
Read 7 tweets
Dec 31, 2024
I’m writing this from the Panama Hotel and Cafe, which sheltered the valuables of Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during WWII, and which sheltered me during one of my darkest periods. This is a letter of gratitude to the Japanese.
/thread Image
Most people see my name and think of Italy, but the first foreign culture that captured my heart was Japan. Manga and anime and sushi led me to study Japanese in high school, and I would often stop through Japantown on my way home from school. Image
I spent countless hours in Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookstore. And my first study abroad experience was actually in Kyoto and Nara, at age 14. I carried Japanese culture with me, even as I later went to study in Italy.
Read 23 tweets

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