Critics have branded the recent decision to sign 38-year-old Amanda Knox for a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as “offensive” and deeply insensitive
Amanda Knox has vowed “not to let the bullies win” — as she defends her upcoming Edinburgh Festival Fringe gig.
The 38-year-old author, who with her then boyfriend was convicted of roomate Meredith Kercher’s murder and then acquited two years later, will debut her first full-length comedy performance at the famous event this summer. It’s a move which has been slammed with critics describing it as “offensive”.
And even Amanda has admitted she feels “nervous” about the performance, but has chosen to do it in an attempt to challenger her “bullies”. The mum 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.”
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Amanda was a 20-year-old student in Perugia, Italy, when her friend and flatmate Meredith, a British student, was killed at their home. She was covered in the DNA of the man eventually convicted as her murderer.
But Amanda was convicted of the murder in 2009, and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. In 2011, the conviction was overturned and Knox was released, whereupon she returned to America. In 2013, her acquittal was overturned after a successful prosecution appeal and a retrial was 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 address at Edinburgh Fringe, called Cartwheel, references what she says is the persistent fabrication that she turned 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.”
The Times reports Amanda has a strong group of supporters, including executive TV producer Monica Lewinsky, who has argued society cannot progress unless women like Amanda 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.”
