Amanda Knox is reportedly charging up to $10,000 to speak about the bizarre murder of her former roommate, Meredith Kercher.
Knox made headlines around the world in 2007 when she was arrested for what prosecutors claimed was the sex- and drug-fueled killing of Kercher, 21, an exchange student from England.
The two had shared an apartment together in Perugia, Italy.
Now Knox, 30, is represented by an agency that charges $5,001 to $10,000 for speaking engagements, according to the agency’s website.
Just this past Wednesday, Knox told students at Roanoke College in Virginia that she was cast as a “she-devil,” the Roanoke Times reports.
“I believed that didn’t matter because only truth mattered,” Knox said. “The nonsense spattered about me didn’t matter. I thought it just showed that it was a weak case. I still believed there was a light at the end of the tunnel because the truth mattered.”
Knox visibly choked back emotions as she told the story of her time studying in Italy as an American exchange student and how it became an eight-year fight with the Italian legal system.
Italy’s highest court eventually overturned her conviction in 2015, as well as the conviction of her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The two were captured on camera kissing while investigators were scouring the crime scene, an image that prompted tabloids to dub Knox “Foxy Knoxy.”
“The controversy was so tantalizing,” Knox told a packed audience. “The story was so good. The truth didn’t matter.”
It’s a case that continues to capture the world’s attention. Knox wrote a book about legal saga that was published in 2013, and in 2016, Netflix released a film about the case.
Knox said she did not think the media portrayal of her could have affected the legal process.
“When the prosecution and media crafted their story, they created this doppelganger version of me to fit that story,” Knox said. “
Foxy Knoxy, she was the blank slate to which everyone could project their fears, their judgment and their uncertainties. People really liked those stories: the ‘man eater,’ the ‘she-devil.’ And they convicted her.”
Despite being initially convicted, she said she remained confident that the truth would eventually emerge and that she would be exonerated.
By 2011, an appeals court reversed the murder conviction and she was set free.
Knox returned to Seattle, her hometown, where she would be followed by paparazzi and subjected to harassment online.
Eventually, following additional legal battles, the Italian Supreme Court cited “stunning flaws” in the criminal investigation and intense media attention that pressured local authorities to identify someone responsible for Kercher’s death.
Today, Knox advocates for those who have been wrongly convicted, crediting her freedom from help she got from others.
For example, when there was talk that Brendan Dassey – whose guilt was scrutinized in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer” – might be released from prison, one of his attorneys called Knox for tips about what Dassey should expect if freed.
“If I’ve learned anything, you can’t uncover the truth by ignoring the messy reality, and the messy reality of our justice system is that it was filled by and implemented by flawed but mostly well-intentioned people,” Knox said, according to the Roanoke Times.
“I want to do better. I want to acknowledge the truth. Because the question isn’t whether something bad is ever going to happen to you, it’s what you’re going to do with it.”
[Feature image: Associated Press/Amanda Knox]
