PRESS RELEASE
When The Accuser Becomes The Accused: New Amanda Knox Stand-Up Show Faces Criticism
LONDON – 18th August 2026 — People are angry about Amanda Knox’s stand-up comedy show, titled Cartwheel, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival because they believe it trivialises violence against women and disrespects the memory of her murdered former roommate, Meredith Kercher. An online petition calling for the festival to cancel the show gathered more than 42,000 signatures, with supporters arguing it risks normalising violence against women.
An Italian court found Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito guilty of murder in December 2009. Prosecutors claimed the student pair killed Kercher during a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong, heavily aided by local sofa surfer Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene. Knox received a 26-year prison sentence, serving nearly four years before her initial release.
Knox’s conviction was definitively quashed by Italy’s highest court in 2015 due to flawed evidence and investigations. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox €18,400 (about $20,800 to $21,000 USD) in total compensation and legal expenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Knox.
An appeals court overturned the verdicts in 2011 after finding severe errors in DNA testing and police work, allowing Knox to return to the United States. Following a prosecution appeal, a Florentine court briefly reinstated the conviction in 2014. Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation definitively threw out the conviction in March 2015, citing striking flaws in the investigation and confirming Knox had no part in the crime. Guede remained the sole person legally convicted for Kercher’s murder.
Knox’s 2015 exoneration by Italy’s highest court was deeply controversial, dividing public opinion globally and sparking intense debate between legal experts, the media, and Kercher’s family. While the court cited flaws in the investigation, many observers and members of the public remained split on her involvement. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/07/amanda-knox-acquitted-because-of-stunning-flaws-in-investigation.
Some commentators call Amanda Knox a false accuser because, during a 2007 intense police interrogation over the murder, she signed a statement falsely implicating her part-time boss, bar owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba. Lumumba was wrongfully jailed for two weeks before being exonerated, and Knox was ultimately convicted of slander for the accusation.
Although Knox was acquitted of murdering Kercher by Italy’s highest court in 2015, her slander conviction for falsely accusing Lumumba was upheld through subsequent legal reviews and retrials.
Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s ex-boyfriend who was also wrongfully convicted and later acquitted alongside her, has expressed his disapproval over Cartwheel. He stated he found it “puzzling that a tragedy is being used as a draw for a comedy show”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0nwz5v1lzo. Many critics are irritated by Knox’s continuous media focus on the 2007 events through books, documentaries, and now a stage performance, which they feel forces the Kercher family to repeatedly relive their trauma.
The family of Meredith Kercher has consistently criticized Amanda Knox for continuing to publicize, commercialise, and profit from the tragedy. They have historically expressed deep frustration that media attention remains focused on Knox rather than on Meredith as the victim. Amanda Knox has generated gross earnings of roughly $4 million to $4.5 million from projects related to her trial, imprisonment, and subsequent wrongful conviction acquittal. https://people.com/where-is-amanda-knox-now-11892877.
Supporters of Knox maintain that her public activities, advocacy, and performances are a valid and healthy exercise in reclaiming her own narrative after surviving a wrongful conviction and intense global media scrutiny. During her high-profile legal ordeal in Italy, some commentators and psychologists speculated in the media that her atypical reactions to stress, unusual public demeanour, and bluntness might mirror traits associated with the autism spectrum or Asperger’s syndrome. https://time.com/archive/7141139/could-amanda-knox-have-an-autism-spectrum-disorder/.
While Knox has recently been vocal in supporting the case of Prisoner Maintaining Innocence and former nurse Lucy Letby, she’s been deafeningly quiet on the subject of men being falsely accused of sexual offences – which is ironic since her original conviction contained an alleged sexual element, so she knows what it’s like.
In a recent review of Jonathan King’s new autobiography Dr Michael Naughton of Empowering The Innocent noted how the public might not quite accept the nuance of one of King’s post-conviction song titles being ‘There’s Nothing Wrong With Buggering Boys’, given the nature of his own alleged wrongful convictions. Similar might be said for Knox performing a stand-up show based on the violent murder of her old roommate.
Rudy Guede, Knox’s co-accused and ‘drifter’ at the time of the murder, maintains innocence and says only they three (including Knox’s then boyfriend) knows what happened that night. Maybe that will never be unpacked: but until it is, there is another seam of the False Allegations Industry to mine.
The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — unites 235 member organizations from 44 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. https://endtodv.org/coalitions/davia/
