Accused of murdering her room mate and sentenced to over 20 years in prison in Italy before being acquitted, Amanda Knox has staunchly defended her innocence in the case which gripped the world's attention in 2007.
British student Meredith Kercher, who was known as Mez to her friends, was just 21 years old when she was found dead in the flat in Perugia she shared with Amanda.
The European studies student had left the University of Leeds to peruse a year-long study course on modern history, political theories and history of cinema in Perugia, and saw her year abroad as a wonderful opportunity to learn a language and expand her horizons.
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Meredith's life was cut short when on November 1st, 2007, her body was discovered and a murder investigation was launched by the Italian authorities, ultimately leading to the arrests of Amanda and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, later acquitted.
During her appeals trial, she proclaimed her innocence: “I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there at the crime,” she said, according to CBS News.
"I've lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible."
"I'm paying with my life for things that I didn't do."
Rudy Hermann Guede was later convicted of the murder. He has denied killing Ms Kercher, and was freed in November 2021 after serving 13 years of his 16 year sentence.
Amanda has since advocated for criminal justice since her conviction was first overturned in 2011.
Born in July 1987, Amanda is the oldest child of her parents and grew up in West Seattle, Washington, USA.
She excelled at drama and soccer in school, and through her quick, fox-like manoeuvres on the pitch, first gained her now infamous nickname "Foxy Knoxy" which was used as a moniker for Amanda during her arrest by the tabloids.
"It was a soccer nickname originally. I played top of the diamond, the first line of defence. My job was to pounce on the ball, and I was good at it. I knew the nickname was cheeky; that’s why it stuck. We were a team of 13-year-old girls, after all. We called my friend Trish ‘Trash’ and Martinez was ‘Martini’. What I didn’t know was that my stupid nickname would become a curse," reads an excerpt from her new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning by Amanda Knox.
"The tabloids jumped on ‘Foxy Knoxy’ when they discovered my abandoned MySpace page. ‘Foxy Knoxy’ was translated into Italian as ‘Volpe Cattiva’ – wicked fox – and it bolstered the image of me as sexually deviant."
After her school days, she went on to attended the University of Washington in Seattle, where she studied creative writing, German and Italian, according to The Guardian.
Her family told The Seattle Times that she then worked three jobs during university in order to save up to fund her study abroad in Perugia.
After her release in 2011, she returned to the US, where she completed her undergraduate degree in creative writing at the University of Washington.
She is a journalist and a writer, and works with The Innocence Project, a nonprofit dedicated to putting an end to wrongful convictions.
She has also launched and hosted podcasts - Labryinths with Amanda Knox, The Truth About True Crime with Amanda Knox and Younglings.
"I had changed," she told PEOPLE in March 2025, speaking about returning to her home after four years in Italian prison.
"I was now the girl accused of murder. For better or for worse, that was forever my legacy.”
She wrote her first memoir, Waiting to be Heard , in 2013, which became a bestseller.
She also took part in a Netflix docu-series titled Amanda Knox which premiered in October 2016 to much acclaim.
She married her partner Christopher Robinson in 2020, and the couple have two children together.
In August 2021, after previously suffering a missed miscarriage, Amanda shared that she was expecting.
“That’s right, we’re pregnant, and we’ve been recording audio of our own experience since day one,” she said on her Labyrinths podcast.
“Stay tuned for our next miniseries, 280 days, where we take you on an intimate journey from conception to birth.”
In October of that year, she shared that she had welcomed her daughter into the world. “I will say I’m excited to not have to keep pretending not to be a mom,” the podcaster told The New York Times.
Posting a photo to Instagram, she said it “will be the only picture of her I will ever share on social media.”
The couple welcomed their son in September 2023.
Her new book, Free: My Search for Meaning, documents her experience in prison and reintegrating into society.
