Amanda Knox talks to Yahoo about Hulu's new series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which is based on her life. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photo: Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)Most people reconnect with former classmates at milestone reunions. Maybe they meet for an occasional coffee when they're back in their hometown. When I saw Amanda Knox for the first time since our high school graduation, our reconnection was a little different. There we were, talking face-to-face over Zoom about Hulu's new scripted series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, inspired by 16 pivotal years of her life.
Knox was keeping a low profile when our 10-year reunion came around in Seattle in 2015, afraid to be in public spaces. She had just learned that Italy's high court would finally bring some closure to a case that began in 2007, when she was arrested on a charge of murder in the death of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, her roommate while studying abroad in Perugia."The first letters that I ever got in prison were from people from [our high school]," she tells me, her voice softening as we begin our conversation. "I'm going to get emotional right now, because everyone else in my life - my parents, my college friends - they were all just like, 'Oh, Amanda's going to get out any day now.' But I think [our school] had this sort of established sense of how to respond to a crisis, and we're going to do it collectively. Like, we know this girl. To receive those messages when I was in the middle of this insane story that was blowing up around me? That was a huge relief."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTo call her story insane is an understatement.
Knox was convicted of murder and spent four years in prison before she was acquitted in 2011. The case took several twists: In 2014, an appeals court reversed that acquittal and reconvicted her. That second guilty verdict, for Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was thrown out in 2015 by Italy's highest court, ending the legal saga. Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene, remains the only person convicted of Kercher's murder.
Through it all, Knox says, her story was often misrepresented, both in the media and by the public. The Hulu series, which premieres on Aug. 20, is her attempt to tell it herself onscreen.
The Lewinsky effectThe series itself came together at a pivotal moment in Knox's life. She had just given birth to daughter Eureka in 2021 and was struggling with how to reconcile the trauma she had endured with her new role as a mother.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I was sitting with this feeling of needing to be OK," Knox says, explaining she had to confront her past to avoid "consciously or unconsciously passing on this dark cloud that had been hovering over me onto my children." (She also shares son Echo with husband Christopher Robinson.)She began corresponding with Giuliano Mignini, the lead prosecutor who worked for years to get both her and Sollecito locked up. The two have since formed an unlikely friendship, and Knox says she's forgiven him. This is a big plot point in The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, a show that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for a different, unexpected friendship Knox formed with Monica Lewinsky.
Knox first met Lewinsky in 2017, when she was feeling "very small and diminished" and that people still didn't believe in her innocence. The two bonded immediately."Monica had been reduced to a punch line, just like I had," Knox says. "Seeing how she emerged, speaking out, writing, advocating - it made me realize there was a path forward for my own story."AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLewinsky reached out to Knox shortly after Eureka was born. "[Monica] said, 'I think it's time to tell your story. I know you want to on your own terms and in your own way. We can do it together.'"Knox wrote her first memoir, Waiting to Be Heard, in 2013, and her second book, Free: My Search for Meaning, came out in March. But a scripted series is a different challenge, offering a chance to show the emotional nuances and psychological complexity that words alone can't always capture.
With Lewinsky's guidance, Knox finally felt ready."She wasn't just like, 'Here's a horrible thing that happened to a girl and here's a courtroom drama.' It's a more personal story of who you were before a traumatic event enters your life, and who you are after. How do you make sense of it? What do you do to reclaim a sense of ownership over your own life? That's what the [show] is about," Knox, who produced the series alongside Lewinsky, says. "That's why we frame it the way we do in the show: I'm going back to Italy to confront my prosecutor."A scene from The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. (Adrienn Szabó/Disney)Aside from Lewinsky, Knox credits creator and showrunner K.J. Steinberg for guiding the series with sensitivity and ensuring the story was told with both accuracy and heart.
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