Amanda Knox opens up about comedy as a way to process her wrongful conviction
The former prisoner jokes that parenting is even tougher than surviving Italian jail
Amanda Knox is finding a new way to process her past—through comedy.
The 38-year-old author and activist, who was wrongfully convicted in the 2007 murder and sexual assault of her roommate Meredith Kercher, has begun performing stand-up routines that draw on her extraordinary life experiences.
Her shows tackle her time in an Italian prison, offering a darkly humorous lens on events that once dominated global headlines.
Knox, along with her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was initially convicted in Perugia, Italy, for the murder of 21-year-old Kercher, a University of Leeds exchange student. Italian prosecutors described the incident as a “sex game gone wrong.”
Knox and Sollecito were released in 2011, and the Italian Supreme Court definitively acquitted both in 2015. Their co-defendant, Rudy Guede, served 16 years for the crime.
Now a mother of two with her husband Christopher Robinson, Knox jokes that the hardships of jail were minor compared to the challenges of parenting.
“I think that finding the ability to laugh at the bad things that have happened to you and find the absurdity in the human condition is very important,” she said.
“I really love how comedy allows me to feel connected to other people. It’s a way of turning the temperature down a little bit and making fun of myself.”
Knox’s journey into comedy follows her involvement as an executive producer on Hulu’s 2025 biographical miniseries, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which starred Grace Van Patten as the former exchange student.
Knox described watching Van Patten’s performance as cathartic, allowing her to “finally grieve the young person that I was” and reclaim the “sparkle” that had been overshadowed by public scrutiny.
She praised Van Patten’s portrayal, saying, “Not just me. Everyone I know who has seen this has just been like, ‘How did she do that? How?’ She is incredible, and I’m so grateful because she finally honours that young person that I was and the person I am today.”