The Adam Friedland Show (Cumtown) - AMANDA KNOX talks Trial, Amélie, Redemption

Episode Date: September 6, 2025

Get harder, longer-lasting erections with Ro Sparks: $15 off first order of medication to get hard at https://ro.co/TAFS -- Patreon:   / theadamfriedlandshow   The Adam Friedland Show - Season Two Episode 11 | Amanda Knox X: https://x.com/adam_talkshow Instagram:   / theadamfrie.  . TikTok:   / adamfriedlandshowclips   YouTube: Subscribe to @TheAdamFriedlandShow here:    / theadamfriedlandshow   Subscribe to @TAFSClips here:    / @tafsclips    #amandaknox, #adamfriedland, #theadamfriedlandshow, #tafs, #hulu, #truecrimecommunity

The night of the crime you were with your boyfriend and you watched the film Amelie. Amelie, yeah. Was that the last movie you watched for like four years? Yeah, that was the movie I was watching when this crime occurred. No, I love that movie. Don't you think she's acting annoying a little bit? No, I love that movie.

She acts like Amelia Bedelia a little bit, you think? Sure. It was the night that your life, I would hate it even more if your life got ruined the night I watched Amelie. Amelie is the reason why I was saved. safely and someone else's home instead of at home getting ripped and murdered myself. Hey guys, welcome to the Adam Friedland Show. It's your boy, Adam Friedland. Guys, on a sincere note, I want to thank everyone for the feedback we got on the last episode.

It was really nice, and it seems like it reached a lot of people, and it feels good. It's unexpected. We didn't think that that would happen, and it's pretty cool for all of us here at the office. And so thanks a lot again for everyone. It's embarrassing, I cried. Just don't. Girls saw that. As always, I want to thank our members here on YouTube.com for supporting the show through the Freedland Family Foundation.

And if you're not a member, and you want to get our episodes early and have your name in the credits, you can sign up here on YouTube.com. There's two different ways. You could click the join button at the top of your screen, or you could click the link in the description of this video below. And if you prefer to support the show through Patreon, there's also a link in the description of this episode. Guys, as you may have noticed, I'm looking pretty fresh today. I'd like to announce officially we will be releasing Adam Friedland Show merch in the next week. This has taken way too long to get off the ground. And I can assure you it has nothing to do with my civil rights moment.

I'm not, it's really embarrassing. Should we not actually sell merch? is this weird it might be kind of weird it's kind of in bad taste guys this is coincidental this is a coincidental merch launch fuck that's weird i saved the jews last week and now i'm throwing them back in it now i'm throwing them back in the fucking oh my god as you may we're launching merch and it's unrelated to the unrelated to anything that's been happening recently in the show we're launching merch. It's been a fucking comedy of errors to get the side up. The side won't be launching by the end of the week. We're selling these hats. They're pretty sick. I get, I took,

God, it feels, just, I literally just, oh my God, I was Queen Esther last week, and now I'm fucking Adolf Eichmann. So, guys, what are we selling? We're selling these hats, pretty sick. We got these shirts. This is based on a Jay Leno shirt for the Tonight Show from the early 90s, hero of mine. Zach, what else we got? We got this one. This is more of a punk rock style with the new Adam Friedland Show logo.

And one more. Ooh, a military green, folks. So, folks, by the end of the week, whoever the fuck, we thought that the web designer guy stole money from it's been a long story guys and it's unrelated to anything that's happened recently we will be launching our merch store and for those that are members and patrons there will be a discount code for all of our merch my guest this week is amanda knox the activist and author who was wrongly accused of murdering her roommate meredith kercher in 2007 while the two lived together

during a study abroad program in italy amanda suffered through a long legal battle including a four-year stint in an Italian prison that ended with her exoneration on the charges of murder. The story is now the subject of a new Hulu original series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which Knox co-produced with Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky co-signed. Monica, we need you on the show next. Please, Monica, if you're, please, Monica, I would, please. Please. Anyway, so here's my conversation with Amanda Knox.

I usually don't like people who have been to jail, but we actually got along great. Please enjoy. This episode is sponsored by Roe. Rose Sparks is a two-and-one prescription treatment for guys who need a secret weapon. It's the new wave. They hit the bloodstream faster because they dissolve right under the tongue. So no more waiting to perform. After Rose Sparks dissolve, they can work in 15 minutes on average after they dissolve.

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What a set. What a beautiful show. Thank you for having me. I know I've been like talking about this iPad. I don't know if it did it turn off on you it just I don't know if this is going to be the new style of the show is this your subtle way of beginning the conversation no it's me it's me talking about myself which is a great way to interview but do you always use your middle finger to touch the pad you picked up on that no I was flipping you all yeah uh welcome

the show thanks for having me you were you were strongly advised against true of the show I was so strongly advised against no just a friend just a friend of mine who who was like, I'm afraid that he's going to laugh at you, not with you. Why would I live at you? I don't know. I'm nice. You have apparently a reputation. So Whitney Cummings said don't do the show?

No, it was not. You bastard. It was not Whitney. You were officially an enemy of the show. No, it was not. Don't wrongly accuse Whitney Cummings. DJ Academics, you are at number one. Whitney Cummings, you're a close second.

Oh my God. Donald Trump, you've moved down to three. Yes, it was Donald. Donald Trump said don't do the show? Do you have his number? No, I do not. Monica Lewinsky said don't do this show? No, but I do have her number.

I watched your podcast you do with Monica. Yeah, what did you think? I just love Monica. She's so funny. I love you. I don't love, sorry, your husband's here. I don't love, you know, I like both of you. You guys have a good dynamic.

Yeah, but she's so sweet, and she's so smart, and she works her ass off, and she's been through hell. What's not to love? You guys have, like, a commonality there? Because you guys have been, like, your stories have been, you've been, you know, blasted out in the public office. and kind of you know yeah and like fought tooth and nail to like have a say over who we are in the public imagination and she really was the one who forged the path forward I mean I'm following in her footsteps obviously your

story became incredibly you know global news where were you when it was going on I was I had an alibi yeah yeah I did too but I didn't do anything I have an alibi for where I was I think do you think that I know we're jumping around a million directions but Do you think that the phenomenon of true crime, which your story has kind of been retconned into? Because I think it posts like... Well, it is a true crime in the sense that a true crime occurred. My roommate was rape or murdered and all of that.

Yeah. But, yeah. What I mean is like as kind of a cottage industry in society, like post-serial, it's become like it's exploded, right? Yeah, well, and I think even, I mean, serial was possible because of documentaries like making a murderer and... Thin blue line? And thin blue line, and even the documentary that Netflix did on my case. Yeah. So.

I, sometimes my girlfriend, like, am I correct in thinking like it's a majority female audience? Yes, yeah. Yeah, typically it's a majority female audience. And that's interesting. Like, why is it that guys like watching things explode and girls like watching, you know, crimes? I don't know. like maybe it's more maybe true crime is dealing more

with the process of the aftermath of the destruction whereas like men are more interested in the destruction itself sometimes I think that it's like sometimes they want to see a lady whose life is worse than theirs maybe

sometimes like I mean like in the morning my girlfriend's reading Apple news and her algorithm is just I call it girlfriend news I'll like wake up and she'll be like a baby killed like committed suicide And I'm like, why is this in the news? And I was like, I don't want to know that.

It is true. So, okay, so now we're getting into, like, why is the media what it is? And because we know that the strongest feeling that drives engagement is outrage. So when you see something like a baby commits suicide, you just automatically. I want to know. It's sad. It's too sad. And my phone does this to me, too.

Like, I can't figure out I'm an old lady with the stuff, too. Yeah. And I don't want it. I don't want this. information out there. I don't need that. I need kitty videos. That's what I need. And thankfully, it also serves me up that. But, like, the outrage machine that drives engagement, which is what our entire media industry is built upon, is built upon that. But I don't think, I think it's not quite fair to say that it's just that your girlfriend wants to see someone whose life is worse than theirs. I'm joking. Yeah, I think it's more coming from an empathetic place. Yeah, right. No, I think it's probably that the women's lives are like under threat probably more than men's lives are right we do feel the precariousness of our lives more I think women are violence you know under threat of violence uh more than men are

so I think that probably it kind of plays into that is that true I mean men are under threat of violence as well they're just under threat of violence from each other I appreciate that I appreciate I appreciate that yeah well it's true especially when you're a white straight guy like me yeah the most everyone just wants to punch your face We've touched on a lot of things that I want to expand upon later on. But for those individuals, we have a lot of, like, four-year-olds that watch the show, so they might not be familiar with the year 2007. Right.

For me, I was at university. It was a glory. I was, you know, animal collective. Are we the same age? How old are we? I'm 87. We are the same age. Okay, amazing.

Class of 2005. Yeah. Yeah. I'm July. When are you? April. April. It's a little older.

You can tell. You can tell. Do you respect me as an older? guy? I will see. At the end of this conversation. Are you jealous? Yeah.

So yeah, we are the same age. 2007, we all remember. Animal Collective Mary Weather Post Pavilion. We got, you know. Sure, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing was big in those days. The AV club article.

Yeah, I remember that. You grew up in Seattle. You went to U-Dub, right? I actually, like, have a, know a lot of people that grew up, like, in that environment. like a Pacific Northwest. It's like a very specific like, like Patagonia vest kind of situation. Yes, it is that kind of situation. We all go outside a lot, even though the

weather isn't always accommodating. Yeah. Pretty progressive. Yeah. I was the kind of kid who could just like do my own thing and be a creative weirdo and it wasn't a big deal. So clearly your case, you know, you went to college and then you became an international spectacle. Yeah, yeah. From, you know, from just under the most traumatic worst circumstances. Yeah. How aware. I guess prior to your arrest, you must have understood that it became tabloid news, you know, I think in three countries, right, primarily.

Like Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Yeah, so, yes. So really early on, it was already clear that there was a lot of media buzz around the case. However, like, I wasn't aware of what media they were. I was in and out of the police station. So it's not like I was, like, sitting at home, which my home was now a crime scene, so I didn't have a home. I was hanging out with my boyfriend of a week who was now, like, taking me under his wing and letting me stay at his place while I had nowhere else to go. that really moves the relationship forward I guess

yeah yeah being accused of crime yeah well we hadn't been accused yet right so right so like in the first few days we just were responding to this crazy horrific thing that it seemed to come out of completely nowhere like it was we were having

this beautiful study abroad experience our whole lives ahead of us everything was going great until suddenly I come home and there's a crime scene and I call the cops because I don't know what to do and they come and the whole thing explodes. And it's happening so quickly. Like, I was arrested within five days.

And in those five days, I was being questioned for over 10 hours a day. So, like, I didn't really, there was no way for me to keep pace with how fast everything was developing. In spite of the fact that we didn't actually have, there wasn't a lot known about what happened to my roommate at the time. Like, very little was known. It was just all a lot of pressure descending upon this small town and on these, you know, local law enforcement who were charged with discovering who had committed this really heinous and is seemingly inexplicable crime. And to contextualize, I'm a bad interviewer. Yes. We're on study abroad.

Yes. And your roommate was murdered. Yes. And then you were questioned for five days and then later incarcerated. Yeah. Okay. So, yes. Yeah.

I'm terrible at my job. Okay, yeah. So why don't you share your story? Sure. Yeah, we'll edit it. No, no. So for those who are not familiar, when I was 20 years old back in 2007, I went to go study abroad. I lived in a house with three other young women, one of whom one day was discovered, raped, and murdered in her bedroom.

And this was very shortly, I was only in Perugia for like five weeks. So I was like just getting my bearing. and I still was not fluent in the language, and I'm the youngest person in the house, and I'm the one who comes home and stumbles across this crime scene. I call the police, and the police come, and they start investigating this case, but from the very early stages, and this is known now because the prosecutor has written his own book about it and everything, when they came and discovered the crime scene, they immediately thought that what was apparently visible, that there was a break-in,

that whoever broke in, raped and stabbed to death my roommate, that that was actually staged. It was faked. There was actually something more conspiratorial going on. And so they believed that someone who had access to the house, who lived in the house, was involved. And that suspicion fell very quickly onto me. And so they pursued a case against me, even when, you know, the DNA evidence and all the evidence in the case came back showing that it was this known burglar, known for being aggressive towards women, who had a history of breaking and entering, all of his DNA was at the crime scene. The footprints, yeah, footprints, bloody handprints, his DNA in my roommate's body, like all of that, definitively proving his guilt in this case. But by the time that they identified that evidence, they had already arrested me.

And so instead of admitting that they were wrong, they pursued a case where they suggested that I had orchestrated a murder orgy. And that story just blew up over the world. I mean, it's like perfect fodder for tabloid news. Yes. What's interesting also is that 2007 was like kind of an inflection point, I think, of like, of, like, media. Like, so you were kind of at the tail end of, like, a tabloid establishment, like the sun and the daily mail,

and it's subsequently changed. It's kind of like, you got Facebook, what, the year before that, right? Yeah, so the iPhone came out that year. I started texting freshman year. There you go. Like, yeah, we did not have smartphones back in those days. I was on a Nokia flip phone. Remember the days.

Or, like, even just, you know, In Perusia, I didn't have internet. I had to go to an internet cafe. Like, oh, you know, talk about aging myself. Like, internet cafes were a thing. You hear that, Joji? Back in our day, yeah. Yeah, back in our day, you had to go to a cafe to email your mom.

And so, yeah, so it was a different time. And you're right, like, it was the beginning. It was when, I think, traditional establishment media was experiencing, was really realizing that there was a crisis. There was an economic crisis. their economic model was not going to survive the internet. And so they were desperate to try to retain readers and to do so with less of a budget.

And so cheaply, quickly, efficiently to try to out-compete the internet. And as a result, they just made shit up and perpetuated misinformation because they were in their death throws. And also, it was three different countries, correct? So, like, the narrative, you know, in the UK, like, their tabloid rags was like the Foxy-Noxy. Like, they love rhymes over there. I've learned this since then, yes. Foxy-Noxy is just that's breakfast, lunch, and dinner for those guys.

They're like, this is perfect, print it. Yeah, yeah. And then in the United States, it was like this, like, American girls, you know, scared abroad, you know. Right. Some of it was, although, like, the person. And it was also just the salacious sense. sex angle, too. Yes, yeah.

I mean, there was this, like, weird angle here in the U.S. specifically with, like, the Daily Beast, I recall, was really terrible. But, like, there was a writer who wrote for the Daily Beast who just wrote these just nonstop articles about student killer men and ox, student killer men and ox. Yeah, yeah, it was women, yeah, it was women writers. She was hating on you. Yeah, she was.

My point prove it. Oh, no. They want to see other women destroy it. Well, and but that also was this, like, narrative that the prosecution was putting forth that, like, all women hate other women. Hence, of course, Amanda wouldn't murder. So I agree with the prosecution. Assuming. Yeah, yeah.

And then also in Italy, there was, like, this kind of, it's a Catholic country. It was a religious prosecutor. And then they were kind of labeled the... Yeah, there was definitely a Madonna, yeah. Madonna-hor dichotomy that was going on where both my roommate and I were completely misrepresented. So in Italy itself, they had stereotypes about what are American girls like, what are British girls like? And they thought, well, British girls are uptight and judgmental. And American girls are loose and slutty.

And, well, whatever, you know, they're human beings. And they have all these different facets. But the way that it got presented in court was Meredith is this like uptight judgmental person. Amanda is this slutty sort of in your face person. Obviously, their confrontation would result in a sex murder. And for me at the time, what was so frustrating about it was this was obviously a fantasy that was built on stereotypes and misogynistic pornographic fantasy. But so many people bought into it.

And I'm actually curious, like, back in the day, do you remember, did you ever follow it? You're beautiful. Oh, well, thank you. No, I mean, that was like an aspect of it. Well, I was going to say, my father was like, that was another news story where he was like, she's beautiful Adam. And she's, she's across the world and she's scared. And I was like, oh, my dad's in love with this, this, uh, my dad was, should we hit him up?

Yeah, do you want to, he gets so embarrassed. Really? Yeah, I'm like, dad, I'm with your crush right now from back of the day. Well, you know what? We should send him a selfie. No, he's, come on. Let's not embarrassed. I'm sorry to embarrass you, dude.

She thinks you're cute. I know, listen, I don't want to leave. you astray your husband's here too you have nothing to worry about with this guy it must be it's actually so funny that that was how the british and american girls were labeled because i don't know if you've been on vacation but you sound like you're afraid that you're about to be murdered the night of the no i'm not by the british these people are come on there's they're pathetic people okay they've never i've no i'm sorry i'm causing an international event right now yeah you are the night the night of the crime

you were with your boyfriend five days. First of all, just did it accelerate the relationship? Did you guys drop I love you, pastor? Well, no, I think it's more the opposite. Like, in fact, something that, like, is an undercurrent of the show that we've developed here

is this story of love lost, right? Like, here, both Raphael and I were both at the very beginning stages of this, like, young love. He looked good. He looked good, that guy. He was shy. Like, he was shy. He was very unlike a lot of the Italian guys that I met,

and he was shy, he was sweet, he... Princessa. Well, yeah, he was very cavalarresco. He was very... What's that mean? Chivalrous, yeah. Chivalrous. Yeah.

He sucks this guy, too. You don't have nothing to worry about. In front of your husband? No, that guy looks so, I mean... But anyway, yeah, so... But then we're, like, put into this horrible nightmare of a situation where he's only known me for a week. Yeah.

And suddenly, because he's my alibi, he's being accused of involvement in this horrible crime. And he then spends four years in prison and eight years on trial and is convicted at a certain point and reconvicted at a certain point. Did you guys try to LDR? LDR? Long-d-d-d-d-d-d-long-distance relationship? No, I feel like I was more focused on proving my innocence. I'm being a fucking... Maybe I am being mean.

Maybe your advice against doing the show is correct. No, no, no, but I hear your point, like, oh, okay, you're in that. It could be romantic. It could be like the world is against us. Well, you know what? And this is something I talk about in my book, is like, the world was vilifying me for my sexuality. And the very fact that I was, like, a desirable object became, like, a point of, like, deep shame and fear for me. because not only was I being, you know, vilified in the press, like, I was getting sexually

Well, I was sexually harassed in prison by prison guards. I was, you know, being accused of being this, like, sex monster in court. And so just, like, being, just like the fact that I'm attractive to other people became a object, like, a reason for me to, like, hate myself and to feel like I was being, I was just being destroyed because of other people's sexual fixations on me. And so the idea of being anyone's object of interest became suddenly very toxic to me. Obviously you're a private person and suddenly you're not a private person. Yeah. And that's like adjusting to that is is a very difficult thing I would imagine. Yeah, yeah. I mean to have every intimate detail of my life

brutally scrutinized was a huge thing when I was 20 years old. Yeah. The night of the crime, you were with your boyfriend, and you watched the film, Amelie. Amelie, yeah. Was that the last movie you watched for, like, four years? I mean, there were some movies that we were able to watch in prison. But, yeah, that was the movie I was watching when this crime occurred.

No, I love that movie. No, if it was, she's kind of annoying. It's just in French. Don't you think she's acting annoying a little bit? I mean, it depends on what you. you think is annoying. My thought was like, if that was the last movie you watched for four years, I'd be like, oh, I wish it was a better movie.

No, I love that movie. She acts like Amelia Bedelia a little bit, you think? Sure, yeah, but there's something charming about Amelia Bedelia, yeah. What do you mean? She's making a mess? She's supposed to be the nanny? She's knocking into things? She has magical thinking.

She's, you know, she's experiencing the world in that manic-pixie dream role kind of way, which I can a little bit relate to. No, way. She's not Natalie Porman and Garden State. That's a lady that's making my house into a mess. I would fire Amelia with you. No, it's just like... It's the same kind of vibe.

My stupid mind, that was my thought. What movie would you watch before you went to prison for four years? Hmm. Hmm. Good question. I guess Donnie Darko. Okay. It's a smart movie. Yeah, sure.

Is that going to give you the strength to get through? Yeah, it's like, it's pretty trippy and stuff, and you think, I've thought about it, you know. Just, it would give you nightmares in the days? It would be distracting. I gave me nightmares when I saw it. It's a movie. It's a make-believe. I'm not afraid of it.

I've never been afraid of a movie. Oh, okay. I get scared. Have you ever been, like, offered, like, a, were you ever offered, like, a career in entertainment after you got out of prison, like? Um, uh, ish. Like, um, someone wanted me to,

to star on a porn. And I imagine, like, you had court fees and stuff like that. And, like, how did your family paid for your defense, right? Yes, they went into debt paying for my defense. Right now. I mean, you seem like you've processed it. You're speaking about, like, a traumatic experience in public. Yeah.

But it has to also be something you've spoken about a million times. And it has to also be, like, as a human being, probably annoying, right? So here's what's annoying. Here's what's annoying, and I've had annoying experiences with this, where it feels like I've had conversations with people where it felt like they didn't actually care what I had to say. They just had their own preconceived idea of what my story was, and they wanted to be the one who got to ask me, did you murder your roommate? And they didn't really care what my answer was. They just wanted to be the person who got to ask me that. And so any kind of conversation that is just limited to, what did you do that night?

And like just in basically putting me on trial again, like I find that to be tiresome and unoriginal and not very useful. Because I think the actual facts speak for themselves and I shouldn't have to defend myself in that way anymore. But when I have a conversation, like this is the first time I'm having this conversation with you. and I don't actually know you that well so I'm kind of discovering defending yourself I'm not drudging you but it's curious to me like

what you find curious about it and what you might know about it because there are a million different ways that I've had to process this experience from all the different angles and it seems like one thing that you're deeply interested in is this question of like I mean you're a media maker so it makes sense

that you're very curious about like how media has evolved and Someone would say mogul, yeah, but... Right, you're a media mogul, you're an icon, and so you want to know, like, how do you go about, you know, being a media icon and mogul ethically and responsibly? I don't, come on, I'm just trying my best, you know. I'm not, I don't know how I found myself in this position in life, but, you know. Well, that's an interesting question. Why do any of, why do you have the influence to, like, have someone, like, to share information?

Is that it? Yeah, that's a stupid world, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so, like, how did you... I pooed my pants on a podcast. Is that what happened? I was with two way more talented guys on a podcast where I was, like, a nebish. Okay. So we, like, rebuilt the Dick Cabot show set, and now, you know, now the newspaper thinks that this is a real thing.

But in reality, I'm a fraud. You know, I don't even know how to read. Okay, well, but that's interesting. I read Harry Potter all of them, though. All right, high five. Have you read those? Are you kidding me? I read them in prison, too.

Yeah, no, that's like how I learned how to speak Italian in prison. You read Harry Potter in Italian. Yeah, because I... Hermione. Yeah. Hermione. No, I love her. Who doesn't love her?

I wish Harry got her. I mean, no, they didn't have their dynamic. They never had that dynamic. so good at school and yeah sure and and he's weird and traumatized and you know like needs that jinny energy she's a strong woman I know I mean it's cool I mean it's and it's kind of sick that he's like now he's real brothers with wrong yes thank you but like honestly did we were at the age where Harry was our age yeah the book yeah sick with that he was like when the when he was like had a wanted to you want to

take down Cho Chang. I don't know why I said it that way. Take down Cho Chang. You wanted to clap Cho Chang. This is what. I'm sorry I'm talking this way. I'm a fucking idiot. When Harry was trying to clap Cho Chang at school, what a race. Those books in retrospect are so racist. Have you seen, have you seen Cho Chang?

Come on. Have you ever seen, someone asked J.K. Rowling on Twitter, is there any Jewish wizards? And she goes, Anthony Goldstein, Raven, Anthony Goldstein, Ravencourt. Yeah, I mean, obviously we all know the goblins or the Jews, but it's kind of, as we found out in society, it's probably more accurate than, no, let's get back on track.

But it was sick, he was our age. He was sick or was our age, and I got to appreciate. And Drake is our age, too. Yeah, so. Well, no, I was going to say I got to appreciate more of Harry Potter's story in prison because there's a certain point where he, the whole world turns against him, and calls him a liar and throws him under the bus

and I was like Harry and I have so much in common and he had to leave he had to go away even though Hogwarts was the most special place in the world you know it was the place he loved the most but I guess Dumbledore believed him the whole time you know

Oh of course yeah Dumbledore Dumbledore would not have gone down with the ship if he didn't think that Harry could like take the reins Yeah and it turns out Snape was the good guy I know I'm so in love with that turn of events Snape forever

Snape forever Do you ever think that Snape sounds like he just had milk To Most of Potter Like he had milk I wasn't judging

Five ports From Gros I was just hearing him I could go on forever About this Harry Potter crap And don't get me started On the Fantastic Beast And Where to Find them series

Which I haven't really Actually watched I actually watched it on a plane Recently It's kind of fire It goes into Dumbledore when he was gay and stuff. Oh, I love that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, great. Whatever. Let's not touch this. Also, there's like a Hufflepuff main character. Yeah, well, I'm into that. Are you Huff? I'm Huff.

Me too. What? It took me a while to admit. I'm lazy and stupid. I used to say, oh, no, I'm definitely. They're loyal and hardworking. What are you talking about? Loyal, I actually am loyal.

I've been cheated on multiple times and not realized it because of my loyalty. Here's another stupid one, like the Amoli thing, but like I mean, Italian food is really good. Like, did you get, was the food? Are you asking, so many people ask me about Italian prison food. It's still prison food, my friend. So no, I did not get to eat Italian cuisine.

I'm not saying, like, Michelin-Sar, but, you know, like a cacho pepe is three ingredients. What do they give you gruel? So, I mean, we did get pasta noodles, but often they were just, like, plain in olive oil or plain with broth. That's not bad. I mean, sure.

You know what? It's better than the U.S., where you get, like, rotten bologna. So, you know what? I'll take it. But, yeah, we were fed twice a day, and it was a very strict, like, the most basic meat, the most basic, you know, some boiled vegetable, and then pasta either with oil or broth. Did you establish, like, relationships with other women in there that have you maintained relationships with anyone that you were with?

Yeah, yeah, actually. So, again, you spent four years of. my life there and... Who's your bestie? My bestie from prison? Yeah. Well, there was one other American woman who was my cellmate for quite a while and we depict her in the show. She's an older woman who really kind of took me under her wing because I was a deer in headlights. Like I was not prepared for the prison environment. I did not understand that there is like a world of like poverty and deprivation that I was just like completely like I was one of the only people in prison who had all of my teeth. I was one of the few people who could read and write.

I had to explain to my cellmates at one point that the earth is a sphere. Like the level of just like not knowing and was shocking to me. And so it really gave me bigger perspective about like what this world is all about and the conditions that people like you and me find ourselves in that put us in a position to fail. So I learned to have a lot of sympathy for these women who were guilty of the crimes that they committed, but really had never been set up to make good decisions in the first place. How many times have you been asked a question about orange is the new black? Not that many times. I tried watching that when I came home, and it was too difficult for me to watch. Yeah, me too. Blah, blah, blah, you know? Oh, no. I'm just

No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, I don't know. Like, it's just, I've also, like, visited a prison once since I got back, and actually this is... I wouldn't imagine you'd want to watch that show. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm curious to see how prison is depicted now that it's a very real thing for me. But the one time I did go back to prison, like, after all this, to visit, was a Washington State prison, and I was going there to support this program called Yoga Behind Bars. And I went to go see the program in person. course I have to go through the whole process of like getting patted down and going through the metal detector and I was given this little like badge and they were like don't lose the badge or you can't leave the prison and I was like fuck off and then like of course we're doing yoga so I take the badge off and I leave it in the yoga room and I try to get out of the prison and

they're like you can't leave and I was like having a panic attack and cried the whole way home I want to talk about the prosecutor in the case sure I understand that you've he was a Can you first please explain kind of what his attitude was during the investigation, during the prosecution, because I think it's an interesting thing to share for the story. Yeah, okay. So in the series, we depict not just my personal evolution as a human being who's gone through this process, but also my prosecutors. So in Italy, one thing to know is that prosecutors lead investigations.

They're in charge of the investigation. They're not like separate from detectives, like they are here in the. U.S. And so from the very beginning, he was the one who was crafting the narrative about what he believed to be true. And he was the one who previously had investigated this really famous serial killer case in Italy called the Monster of Florence case that went unsolved. Sounds scary. Yeah, it's basically like the Jack the Ripper of Italy as it's something that he, and it was a very like sexually charged, you know, like mutilated bodies, really, really horrible stuff. So he had

that history behind him. He also investigated. He was a pious gentleman? He was like religious? Yes, he's a very spiritual man, very Catholic, and, you know, just very traditional in nature. Like, he politically traditional. He judged you for, you know, being a

like, you know, young woman for your sexuality. Yeah, yeah. I think that again, the way that he positioned both Meredith and me is that here's this like good, not necessarily pious but like pure virginal British girl who's obviously judgmental because she's British who is like you know scolding the you know flippant and slutty American girl and the American girl in response murders her by raping her and stabbing her to death.

That's that was the narrative that he imagined and you know and he was really explicit about it. He was standing up there in court saying Amanda was taunting and torturing Meredith while, you know, murdering her and saying, this is what you get, your little goody two shoes. It was all just this like thing that he imagined. He also imagined that I was in this

like secret love triangle with the actual murderer because of course he had to like somehow account for this guy's DNA being all over the crime scene. That made its way into the media narrative. I think that's what I thought about the case. Like that there was this like crazy love triangle thing? Maybe I wasn't like, I wasn't

you know I was like smoking weed in college I wasn't like oh that was another thing I was smoking weed therefore I'm a drug addict yeah and watched Amelie which not that good okay anyway but why do guys hate Amelie Lee? It's Justin Graham sometimes you watch a French movie and they're like they say something and you read it in a subtitle which is like you know they have their own language love is the most powerful drug and like you're like it sounds beautiful in their beautiful language yeah but if someone said that in English I'd be like shut the

fuck up. Well, and to your point, though, that, like, there are even just ways of saying things becomes ways of thinking things. And I think that was also true in Italian culture, which also has a very, like, romantic bent, like French. Anyway, Europeans just say the dumbest crap, you know. They're like, there's nice. Says the American. They do. They say things like, do you know Bob Dylan. You know, like, and I'm just like, what are you, eight years old? What do we eat? Of course, He's my favorite. Oh, do you know, but Sergeant Pippertr? It's like, fucking, they're too naive.

It's too much health care. My understanding, just from like seeing headlines, was that it was like a Fleetwood Mac situation. What does that mean? Like two couples, and then they're like swapping girlfriends. Yeah. I thought that that's what, that's what I was like, I was like, yeah, they were like, there was like, everyone was having sex.

This is the swinging 60s and then suddenly, that's like, no. What I kind of superficially saw, like, but I wasn't paying close attention to it because I was like focusing on crossovers, dunks, tackles, strong men, gorgeous bodies. Sure. Of course. And yeah, and I think that's also one of the sort of points the show makes is like there's this superficial narrative that people take in bits and pieces here and there and they get this like general vibe. But it doesn't, like when you actually dig into what really. happened, there's so much evidence that reveals a very clear, you know, what happened. And like this, like, feeling, this vibe that people have is like, we'll never know what

happened, but we know that it was something sexy is just false. Yeah, we were talking on the phone yesterday, and this is something that I've been thinking about since researching for those, but we were talking about, like, what would your case, how would it be processed in 2025? And, like, the sense I get is that there would be a massive go-fund me, right? You would have, like, fans, stands, if you will. Then there would be a backlash saying, like, if Amanda wasn't beautiful, would anyone care? The third stage would probably be some sort of pizza gate, like, conspiratorial processing of it.

Well, there was that as well at the time, right? So what was that at the time? Well, that at the time, is this, like, idea that I was in this, like, secret threesome with the, with the actual murderer, and that they were, like, so the idea was that I, like, I was openly in a relationship with Raphael, but secretly also in a relationship with this other, like, you know, local burglar. Yeah, and that they were competing, like, they were competing for my attention, and then, and so raped my roommate for me to, like, out-compete each other, and then hold her down while I stabbed her to death. That was the story. And then the idea that, like, I was covering it up and that Hillary Clinton was, like, behind the scenes trying to get me acquitted.

Like, there was, it was insane the level of. Hillary Clinton didn't try to help? I mean, I think one time she was in, like, she went to go visit Italy on a diplomatic thing, and somebody, like, asked, are you following the Amanda Knox case? And she was like, we at the State Department are aware of the case. And everyone took that to mean that she's, like, going to take, you know, the FBI is going to show up and they're going to break me out of

prison and no one was doing that. Thanks for nothing, Hillary. Oh, well, there is due process, I suppose. I know. So you were acquitted after four years and then there was a second trial, is that correct? Yes. So when would, this entire ordeal finally, when did it feel wrapped up? Well, depends on what you mean by wrapped up.

So I was on trial for murder for eight years and then eventually that was the Supreme Court in Italy definitively exonerated me. but they also convicted me of a lesser crime, which was slander. So they said that when I was interrogated and I was coerced into signing statements that I did so knowingly and maliciously lying to the police, and therefore I am a criminal and I deserved three years in prison. And that is a charge that I'm still fighting to this day 18 years later. When was the first time you returned to the United States?

That was after four years in prison, yeah. What was it like for you? What were the initial lingering feelings you had, and what stayed? Yeah. And what did you have to work through? So this was actually a really important part that we wanted to depict in the show because in a typical, like, true crime biopic, it's just like a courtroom drama. But Monica and I, so again, Monica Lewinsky, who worked on this project with me,

really wanted to yeah she's amazing um she it was really important to us to show this like long tail like this like this the trauma itself that happened here has a tremendously long tail and you're like forever altered by this traumatic experience so yeah in those early days and we depict this in the show it's like even the mere ability to open a door just like took on all of this like symbolic weight and I was just I marveled at like the banal the fact that I could open a refrigerator and choose what I wanted to eat the fact that I could go from one door to I could go from one room to another without an escort but at the same time I'm living under tremendous amount of a new kind of pressure which is that media pressure that I was a little bit insulated by from

the in the prison like I only ever encountered the media in the courtroom and now suddenly my house was surrounded yeah there were helicopters outside my house so like it if in this like went on for years I imagine there were stalkers I mean I imagine there were stalkers death threats with you yeah you know I couldn't get a regular job I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't make friends I lived in hiding for another four years while I was still undergoing trial and and it was really hard how did you how How did you, like, heal from that experience? How did you, I mean, you seem like a well-adjusted individual, I guess.

Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. Yeah. By freaking knowing my value and having that reasserted for me by the people I love, like, I would not be here if it weren't for my husband Chris, who I met. He's a good guy. He's a very good guy. Good guy, yeah.

Yeah, no, like he didn't, when we first met each other, It was right after I had been definitively exonerated. So I wasn't facing prison time anymore. I wasn't just, like, fighting to stay technically, you know, physically free. And I suddenly was able to experience the world with a new sense of openness. And he was one of the first people I made friends with afterwards. I actually interviewed him for his debut novel that came out called War of the Encyclopedists. And so I reviewed that.

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. I like to say I wasn't sleeping with the man until after I read it, so. My girlfriend's never listened to a single podcast or watch a single thing I've ever done, and it's probably better that way. Really? You think that she would not want to, yeah, she'd watch this.

I mean, she'd probably be like, what are you bringing up Amelie so much for? Why you hate it? Admit it's not that good. I love that movie. I will fight you. How did you even like that movie? It was the night that your life, I would hate it even more if your life got ruined the night I watched Amelie. Amelie is the reason why I was safe.

and someone else's home instead of at home getting raped and murdered myself. Omily saved me. So yeah, Amelie is a good guy or a good lady. Yeah. We love her. She's annoying, but she's a good lady. We can admit it. Do you often think about what your life would be like had this never happened?

I do. And sometimes I worry that I would have been a less valuable person. Like I do think that I carry with me me like before all this happened I was annoying I was like an annoying am Ily person who nothing bad had ever happened to I was annoying we were 20 I was 20 and and I had like zero perspective about the world everything was like a fucking Disney princess fantasy and you weren't annoying you were figuring it out I was figuring it out but so was on my Lee man there had to be a moment where

because obviously you were under such scrutiny when you got back where you wanted to probably disappear from the public eye. When was the moment where you wanted to return to the public eye? How did you become confident or empowered enough to do that? What factored into that decision? Twelve questions. Yeah. 14. You want some more? Yeah, sure. Go for it. What what happens at the end of Amelie? I forget the ending. Maybe it's actually a good movie? It's sweet. She finds another quirky guy. So there's a manic pixie dream guy. The quirky guy means that he has a shady past. Let's be honest.

He did some things in college. He does take pictures of people and collect them. Yeah, it's true. Is she okay? They seem very happy together. No, okay, sorry. This is it not super relevant. No, no, no.

It's not relevant at all. What was your previous question? The previous question was like, obviously you wanted to disappear from the public life, probably. Sure, yes. And then what empowered you to reenter public life? So one of the issues was that, yes, I wanted to hide it. from public life because I want to just go back to being an anonymous college student and the world wouldn't let me. I kept being followed around. I kept, like, I couldn't go to class without people

taking pictures of me and posting them. So, like, becoming an anonymous person was not an option for me. And I really struggled with that because I felt like there wasn't a good option for me. I couldn't be a private person, but also as a public person, I was a pariah. So what role do I have? and I felt completely trapped. And for a long time, like, I didn't know what to do. I just got a minimum wage job. And I was, like, in a bookstore underground, literally underground, and I had no idea what I could do.

And, again, it wasn't until, I was writing, you know, I was writing for a local newspaper at the time under a pseudonym. The stranger? No, not the stranger. The stranger wrote really bad shit about me. But, you know what? Was it a girl? No, it was not.

Okay, never mind. My theory is... Sorry. However, the chief editor apologized to me recently for that. Have you been back to Italy? Well, that is something that the show shows is when I go back to Italy and confront my prosecutor. But, you know, and you did ask me about that before, like, what's the deal with the prosecutor? And one of the things that helped me sort of figure out this time, this time of my life where I'm still feeling really trapped, was I was I was also struggling with the why of it all.

Like, why did this man look at me, a young woman with no precedent, no motive, no. nothing, you know, connecting me to this crime. Why did he look at me and think, there's my rapist and murderer? Like, why? And I just, it just bothered me that this person who had harmed me probably believed that he was doing the right thing. So how could that be possible? And that's why I reached out to him was to ask him.

Did he apologize? Did you get closure? Well, I'm not going to spoil the show for you. You have to watch the show. I mean, it's like, I know, it's eight episodes. Before I saw Titanic, I knew that it was going to crash. Okay. all you know I'm going to go there.

It's his story. No. I mean, like, well, I guess how can I ask in a way that's not a spoiler alert? Okay, yes. The way you can ask, it's not a spoiler alert. Did it give you closure, right? Did it make you feel better or whole again? Yes, and in a really, really surprising way. I'm a professional.

That was a good, yeah, that's a good spin. Yeah, no, sorry. I totally missed you there. That was a nice one, yeah. Very profesh. No, so go ahead. Yeah, no. It was like when I figured out that my well-being didn't depend on him giving me what I needed, which was acknowledgement and like a mea-culpa, like as soon as I realized that like my, my well-being didn't depend on his choices anymore, it depended on my own, then I realized that like, okay, what can I do? What can I choose to do in this moment that will, that speaks to who I am and what I really believe? And what that was was, was giving him. giving him the thing that he didn't give me, which was the benefit of the doubt.

And I said a lot of things, which included defending myself, but which also included acknowledging his humanity and his belief that he was doing the right thing at the time. And he was... No one wants to believe that they're like an evil. That they're the bad guy. And he made me the bad guy, but I didn't turn him into that. Did you want a knuckle sandwich him ever? No.

I'm not a knuckle sandwich person. Do you want a knuckle sandwich him? No. Really? No, I think instead, what you find when you actually, like, sit down and listen to somebody without judgment, is that they become, they become fragile. And, like, I can't hold this, like, fragile person. Like, he is a person who is struggling himself with his legacy and with his, and with his, decisions and I have sympathy for that so no I guess yeah it's it's pretty

inspiring what you're saying right now because you have to recognize he's someone that kind of ruined your life but you recognize him as a human being I suppose yeah it's not like that difficult a thing but everyone says like oh my god how did you do that and it's like well it's the truth like the thing that that concerns me is not the easy story where it's like he's a fucking bad guy who did a fucking bad thing. That's the easy story. The more true story... It's just not how life works also.

No, it's not how life works. And if you really want to be an effective person in the world and if you really care about the truth, you have to acknowledge that, like, everyone thinks they're the hero of their own fucking story. And, like, he believed he was the hero. And now he's being confronted with the fact that I'm not the monster that he thought I was.

And now he has to reckon with that. And I have great sympathy for him. Well, first of all, you just did a spoiler alert entirely. Ah! But, no, but in reality, that's probably accomplished your goal. Like, of what you were seeking to do is just make him grapple with the fact that you are forgiving, like, three-dimensional human being.

Yeah. As our Lord and Savior, Mr. J.C. has taught him. Sure, yeah. Well, and to your point, like, he's a spiritual person, and I think that he had a spiritual experience. Yeah. You were being Christian. I guess so. You out-Christianed him.

I guess so. I, Jesus jujitsued him. No, I mean, I find that incredibly inspiring what you just said. I mean, genuinely. But that's how I really feel. I mean, like, again, like, and I think that's why this story is super relevant today, where we find ourselves factioned by alternative realities and misinformation, and there's this, like, in a like this great resistance to the idea that we could ever find common ground. And it's like,

I think people are really cynical about finding common ground. And I want to push back on that notion and say, actually, like, one, we should stop just trying to find fault with each other and stop trying to like find reasons to hate each other. Like, I'm so, I'm so tired of people like finding reasons to be mad about something that is like so inconsequential. Like, I've had something happened to me that I genuinely had every reason to like hate the entire fucking world because of it and like I chose not to because that's not the best way to live your life and like I have a lot of like I want to push back on this notion that like to be righteous you have to be angry you don't what is the sensation of seeing your life dramatized and how do you process that

And how involved were you in the development of that narrative? Yeah, well, because this is not the first time that I have been turned into a dramatization, right? This is just the first time that I've ever had a hand in it. I've, you know, there have been Lifetime films, and there was the Matt Damon film. Still water. Yeah, still water. Yeah, what did you think? I didn't connect with it, actually.

That was kind of... Oh, yeah, they were advertising it as this is the Amanda Knox story, but slightly different. And, of course, the Amanda Knox character is at least. least indirectly responsible for her roommate's death. So it's just like perpetuating this like sex narrative of, oh, they were in a sex triangle thing. It was just, it was irresponsible. And so anyway, so like this came about because Monica reached out to me. She's already done, you know, impeachment.

She executive produced that. And she wanted to, I guess, you know, help me be the next person who gets to tell my story in this way. and this time around it was really interesting because I've always had this negative connotation with the idea of there being a doppelganger version of me out there it's always been a negative doppelganger

Grace Van Patten, give it up for her. But Grace Van Patten is incredible. She is so talented. So talented. And she dimensionalizes all of these aspects of me so that it's not just this cartoon character. And you formed a relationship with her

when she was developing, like, the character? Yeah, sure. I mean, I was involved from the whole process, from casting, to breaking the story, to, I co-wrote the final episode with the curator and showrunner, K.J. Steinberg, who I have to give all the credit to because, like, she, like,

she didn't have to involve me so much in the creative process. Like, she could have just taken it and been like, okay, sure, good job. You're an executive producer, but I'm going to do my thing. Like, she really involved me the entire way forward, and I'm really grateful that she,

She mentored me, really, through this process. So, yeah, I was there on set. I was watching all of the different cuts of all the different episodes. And, of course, I've been promoting the hell out of it because I believe in it. It's a good show. Is, were there, are there any moments where it's just seeing, like, you're revisiting a trauma there? Like, you're watching it. Oh, yeah.

Over and over and over again. Yeah, it's got to be difficult for you to process. It was difficult. I think because I'm finally executive. producing a project, I felt a great responsibility to get it right. The good thing was, though, is that I was in a, you know, I was in a warehouse full of hundreds of people who I deeply felt also were very concerned about getting it right. Yeah.

And that made me feel so safe and supported. And so, like, for instance, the interrogation scene, what is, it's in episode two, have you seen it yet? Have you watched? I watched the pilot episode. You watch the pilot episode. Okay, so watch the second episode tonight. I'm going to watch the whole thing. Yeah, but the one that is available right now is the second episode. And then next week there's another episode that comes out. But yeah, so you can see this interrogation scene, which was filmed over the course of two days, 10 hours a day from every different angle, and the psychological journey that

Grace as Me goes on, the psychological journey of her interrogators. It's such a nuanced thing, and it's not like the way that they depict it in, you know, law and order TV shows. It's not like, it's way more complicated. Again, all of these stories are way more complicated and nuanced. And so for me, I was watching this, which was the worst experience of all, being interrogated, was far worse than, like, being convicted for, like, all of it was that was the one moment where I was made to feel utterly insane. And, like, I did not know what was true or not and I was so scared. You're alone. And so alone

and trying to communicate in a foreign language, like it just, it was very, very scary. And getting that scene right was I knew it was a challenge because I was the only one in this entire warehouse who knew what it was like. And yet, they had done

all this incredible research, they had talked to all of these people and came together and made it. And I wept with relief at the end because we had gotten it right. That's beautiful. So, it's really good. And I'm, I look, you'll have to text me how you, how you react to it.

I will, yeah. Give me the play-by-play. I'll live text. Yeah, I love it. I love that. I mean, this reminds me of a certain, certain anomaly. Yeah, there you go. There are ameli, like, there's an homage to Amelie Lee in this show.

Did you notice that already from the pilot? It's just in French, okay? No. What do you have against French? I don't know why. No, I'm just kidding. I love, I was just a Morset. It's a little.

Yeah, that's right. It's kind of... I think I understand you now. You hate love things. Like, everything you love, you like... The only thing I hate is myself. Which means you love yourself the most. Someone just felt heard.

Someone just felt heard. How long I've known you? I took you to a Drake concert when you were 17. I know. It made me incredibly. You know what I'm 17. No. I mean, I think what's one, like, message you want someone.

to take away from the show. I guess, like, in conclusion, let's say. Yeah, sure. So I think that I think that the experience that I went through while it is very extreme is actually a more universal story than people give it credit for. And a universal story being that life is going to come at you

and even if you do everything right, something bad is going to happen to you. And at that point, you have a choice. If you can survive that bad thing that happens to you, do you let it have a say over who you become or do you have a say over who you become do you take ownership and how do you do that and I think that I've learned to do that in my life and it's come through a lot of struggle and a lot of obstacles but like it is absolutely possible and I believe in that and so I just want I would like people to come away from this

series feeling very hopeful I think that's a perfect place to leave it guys I mean I think that's, I find that, I really appreciate you coming on. I find that incredibly inspirational. Check out the show. Yeah, thank you. Look out the show. And check out the podcast. Yep, Hard Knocks.

The show is called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox on Hulu. And check out Amanda Comedy Clubs all over America. You're going to be going on tour? How much time do you have? How much material do you have? I did an hour. You did an hour? Yeah, I did an hour.

Just bit, bit, bit, bit, bit. Boop, boop, boop. Or what, you did some alt comedy style stuff? I mean, sure, like, I mix it up with some stuff that makes you laugh, it makes you cry. Do you call your dad and, like, play a prank on it, like a prank call? No, but one of my favorite things is when my dad is in the audience and I start telling sex jokes. Really? Yeah, how does he react?

Boo! No, he's so sweet. He's very supportive. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks so much. And thank you guys for coming here. Thank you for Andrew. I'm going to be able to be.

Thank you.