LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 26: Author and activist Amanda Knox attends the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California on April 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images) (Image: Getty Images)
Amanda Knox has pledged “not to let the bullies win” – as she stands by her forthcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe appearance.
The 38-year-old author, who, alongside her then-boyfriend, was convicted of flatmate Meredith Kercher’s murder before being acquitted two years later, will present her debut full-length comedy show at the renowned festival this summer. The decision has sparked fierce backlash, with detractors branding it “offensive”.
Even Amanda has acknowledged feeling “nervous” about the performance, but has opted to proceed in a bid to confront her “bullies”. The mother of two said: “Ultimately, it comes down to wanting to silence me because I raise an uncomfortable reality.
I feel wronged and I don’t like letting the people who wronged me win – I don’t want to let the bullies win.
“I know I have something legitimate to say, I’m not just going up there just for the heck of it. It’s not just about me but it’s about what it means to be a woman in the world.”
Collect of murder victim Meredith Kercher aged 19 pictured at her Surrey home. The British student was murdered while study in Italy. (Image: Daily Mirror)
Amanda was a 20-year-old student in Perugia, Italy, when her friend and flatmate, Meredith, a British student, was killed at their shared accommodation. She was covered in the DNA of the man eventually convicted as her murderer. However, Amanda was convicted of murder in 2009 and handed a 26-year prison sentence.
In 2011, the conviction was overturned and Knox was released, subsequently returning to America. In 2013, her acquittal was itself overturned following a successful prosecution appeal, with a retrial ordered. In 2014, an appeals court in Florence, Italy, convicted Amanda of murder for a second time. In 2015, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation definitively acquitted Amanda of Meredith’s murder.
Amanda’s Edinburgh Fringe address, entitled Cartwheel, references what she describes as the persistent fabrication that she performed cartwheels during police interrogation.
The writer, originally from Seattle, Washington, continued: “There are a lot of situations where there are survivors of terrible ordeals and people who didn’t survive. Have we ever said, ‘You need to shut up and disappear because you make people uncomfortable?’
“The messaging from critics is any and every way that I’ve told my story has been wrong; because it is me, it must be at someone’s expense.”
According to The Times, Amanda has garnered a devoted circle of supporters, amongst them executive TV producer Monica Lewinsky, who has argued that society cannot move forward unless women such as Amanda are free to speak without shame.
Speaking to the publication, Amanda added: “I don’t like assuming the worst about people or places. I want to believe that at Edinburgh I could get a fair hearing.”