August 21, 2025 • 48 mins
Sophia's in-depth conversation with Amanda Knox continues with what happened after the guilty verdict - from Amanda's traumatic time spent in an Italian jail to the equally shocking revelation that her conviction was overturned and she'd be set free. Amanda takes us through the painful process of grieving all that was lost, finding purpose in what came next and seeking closure through the most unexpected source.
Before you watch the rest of "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox" on Hulu, listen to Amanda share her story in her own words.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome
back to part two of Work in Progress with the
inimitable Amanda Knox. Let's continue. It's so amazing, you know,
(00:24):
all these years later, that you've turned this into not
only that you're an advocate, but you've also turned your
advocacy into projects like the Scarlet Letter Reports. You know.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Ah, yeah, thanks for bringing up the Scarlet Letter Report.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I just think it's so amazing because you in it,
you're examining the very gendered nature of public shaming and
the way we treat women is just horrific, and I've
been through it in my way. Obviously we're talking about
your story today. I think about what was done to
Britney Spears. I think about what just happened with Karen Reid,
(01:00):
you know, and you've done things to remove the veil
and particularly examine the ways women are treated. And I
want to talk about all of those lessons. But before
we zoom out to the way the world treats us,
I guess I just want to know. You know, obviously,
(01:21):
people can read your books. I don't want you to
have to recount your whole story.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a lot well it's a big story.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
But I think about the fear I feel imagining that
moment to be falsely convicted of a crime so egregiously
with no real evidence, to be raked over the coals
in the court of public opinion because they didn't have
(01:51):
the evidence, so they needed people just not to like
you were a kid, how did you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hope?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Because I think it's a miracle that you're not sitting
in the corner eating your own hair right now. So
for later, Yeah, were you questioning your sanity? Were you
questioning reality? What did you do to remain tethered to
the truth in your young life in this place?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, So to answer your question, absolutely, Like everything went
through my mind to try to explain what was happening
to me and why, And I mean I went through
I feel like all the stages of grief as well,
where part of it was denial, Like I spent a
while there in prison feeling like I was living somebody
(02:48):
else's life by mistake, and that like some adult was
going to figure it out and give me my life back.
So like that was also the kid mentality that I had,
where I was like, I'm in over my head because
I'm a kid, and I need some adult who's in charge,
(03:09):
who is sane, to like fix the situation. Like it
was like, yeah, that's that's how it felt for quite
a bit of time. Was like I'm in a tough situation,
but if I just endure for long enough, the adults
(03:31):
will will do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's what it felt like.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And like in those early days, I actually get myself
through just the time and the insanity, like just sitting there,
and I mean, there's there were so many bad things though,
Like it's there's the courtroom bad things like having to
(03:54):
listen to people talk in very gruesome detail about the
murder of your friend, but then also putting the knife
in your hand, or like listening to my prosecutor like
like create this story about like putting words, literal words
(04:19):
into what I supposedly said to Meredith as I'm like
taunting and torturing her to death.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Like just just having to sit there.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've just like while this is just happening around me,
like it's no big deal, and not be able to
do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So just like sitting there, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know what I think about for you, I think
about the way men just are allowed to sit and court.
But women, everything you do is picked apart. And if
you cry, maybe you're crying because you're guilty. If you
don't cry, you're a frigid bitch who has no feelings.
You must be a murderer. If you don't like, no
matter what you do, they're gonna tell you what's wrong.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Right. If you look good, they say, oh, look she's
trying to like use her feminine wiles to like seduce
the judge. If you don't look good, it's like, oh,
look at her, you know, Like it's just it's just NonStop,
but it it really is truly picking a human being,
a part constantly being viewed in the worst possible light.
(05:25):
It's utterly debilitating. It makes you feel like nothing you
say or do matters. It will only make things worse.
It makes you just want to disappear. And I mean,
like I was doing little things, like you know, I
was an athletic kid, and so like I had little
mantras when I was being you know, riding my bike
(05:48):
up a steep hill where I would just do, like
the little engine that could, I think I can, I
think I can.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I think I can.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And sometimes like I would just be sitting there in court,
just going I think I can't, I think I can.
I think like I can. I just need to get
through this moment and have you ever Actually I'm curious
because I feel like I may be the biggest fan
of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That I feel like is.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Like love the underrated show ever, but like that show
extremely speaks to me. Also just because she's like, anybody
can survive anything for ten seconds, like that is that
is real? Like I don't know, I don't know about
like the next hour, but I can deal with this
hour and then I'll deal with the next hour next.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
After the verdict, that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Became an even more important part of my ability to survive,
because now I wasn't just waiting for a verdict. I
had a twenty six year sentence sitting in front of me,
and I had to grieve my entire life, Like the
life that I thought I was going to get to
have with like a family and a career like that
was gone. And I was now imagining emerging from prison,
(07:00):
obsolete and unmoored and unrecognizable and just like a body
that was now in a world that had moved on
without me. And that was primed to want to punish me.
That's what I would That's the forecast of my life.
(07:21):
And I did not know how to live that life. Yeah,
so I stopped trying to figure out how to live it,
and I started trying to figure out how to live
just today, Like if I could find a reason to
live today, that would be enough, and then I worry
about tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Or what did you start to lean on? I mean,
as a as a person who loves literature, were you
were you reading a lot? Were you thinking to yourself, well,
maybe i'll get a degree here. I know people do that.
You know, it does seem to be a pursuit for people,
particularly who are falsely convict. Did you know we've learned
(08:01):
so much from organizations like the Innocence Project? I mean, what,
what did you think your coping strategies would be.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A great question. So the pipeline for getting a degree
didn't exist in my prison, so there wasn't really an
avenue for me to do that. I did have a
connection with a professor at the UDB who like continued
to help me like try to gain like continue getting
(08:33):
you know, credits for work that I would send into him,
like translation work, and stuff, but like, I didn't really
have a clear sense of being able to have a
degree right. Instead, what I had a clear sense of
was reading voraciously. I read a lot, and I looked
(08:54):
around me, and I tried to figure out how I
could have a meaningful existence within the confines of the
situation that I was in. And kind of ironically, I
had set out to become a translator, and now here
I am, over two years in prison, fluent in Italian,
(09:15):
and there are a number of people around me who
either are foreigners also and so are not fluent in
Italian and need a translator wow, or they are Italian
speakers but they don't know how to read or write.
So suddenly I realized that I was actually a very
(09:37):
valuable resource, and that sort of became my unofficial job
and sense of purpose. While I was inside, I was
the translator because there was no translator, and I was
the scribe because there was no scribe.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And so every day, every day.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I was brought into other people's cells to help them
read and write, or you know, do all those translate,
do all those kinds of things, or if someone had
to go to the doctor and needed to explain some
kind of ailment. I went with them to the doctor
to help them communicate, because there just wasn't that function
in the prison where I was at. So Weirdly, once
(10:21):
I had sort of accepted that I am a prisoner
and this is my reality, and my real reality isn't
outside of prison, I was able to find something very
purposeful to do. Did that make me feel happy? No,
but at least gave me a feeling of purposefulness. So
(10:47):
and that was enough, at least for the amount of
time that I was there.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Right, Well, yeah, something something to do, something to occupy
the mind. And I'm sure you know emotionally it helped
that it was helpful work. When everything I mean, what
is even the word, my God, when everything shifted was righted,
(11:13):
when you were exonerated, when they caught the actual killer,
the evidenced killer, whose fingerprints and all the rest of
it were there the whole time, part of me thinks
the relief must have been overwhelming, and then part of
(11:38):
me thinks to myself, but by then you were experiencing
such trauma, you'd experienced such trauma on repeat. Were you
even able to feel relieved? Did you have a moment
where you thought everything might go back to normal or
did you know that there was no normal to go
back to?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Good question.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So my wrongful convict did not work itself out the
way that you typically hear about wrongful convictions in the US,
and that's in part because I'm a woman. In most
like classic examples of a wrongful conviction, particularly here in
(12:19):
the US, what happened was somebody got you know, murdered,
and they didn't have advanced DNA technology at the time,
or they just didn't test things back then, and so
they just get the wrong guy. And then twenty years
go by and they finally test the DNA and it
(12:41):
reveals that the person who was convicted was actually innocent,
and it also like reveals who the real killer was,
and so there's this like moment of like baugh and
everyone realizes the truth and then the person who you
know is innocent gets out, the person who did it
goes in. Everyone's had justice is done, you know, wedding bells, whatever.
(13:05):
And that was not how it worked out in my case,
because two weeks after the you know, Meredith's murder, we
already knew who the murderer was, right, So it's not
that I was eventually exonerated because they finally discovered who.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
The real killer was.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They knew who the real killer was all along, it's
just that by the time they had identified him, they
had already arrested me, and so instead of admitting.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
That they were wrong, they doubled down.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
They doubled down, and the police argued that I had
committed the crime with the person who had actually committed
this crime. And so when I was acquitted, it wasn't
it wasn't this like sweeping universal acknowledgment of my innocence
the way that it would have been otherwise.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Instead it was, oh, well, they got.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
One of the murderers, but the other ones got off,
you know, they got off on a technicality.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And so to this day, to this day, in Italy.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
There is a large portion of the population that still
believes that I am guilty of committing this crime, despite
the fact that there is no evidence of my involvement
at all. And that is because the way that the
information was revealed to them, and the story, the way
to interpret that information, the way that was revealed to them.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Set up a expectation of.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
My guilt, and this sort of like guilt presumptive assumption
about me and it's just this feeling, like it's not
a great feeling when like people to this day, even
though I have, like you know, the exoneration, I have
the paperwork, I have the proof of my innocence all
of that, people to this day are still wondering like
(15:14):
and and a lot of and a lot of it
has to do with again, the way that we vilify
women publicly, right, like you say that you're not right
and you know and and you know, maybe she's innocent,
but she's deeply.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Unsettling, Like there's just like this, like there's something guilty
about her.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I don't know what it is, and so like there's
that Like I did come out of prison, So to
answer to finally answer your question, I was acquitted. I
was released from prison, and I was utterly overwhelmed with relief.
But that relief was quickly tinged with the realization that
(15:59):
I did not get to go back to just being
an anonymous college student.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I was forever branded the girl who was accused of murder.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yes, and I would.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Be living with that being the role that had been
cast for me. That was the trajectory of my life,
was carrying this scarlet letter with me forever. Right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
We'll be back in just a minute after a few
words from our favorite sponsors. The story that makes you famous,
the story that garners the attention, the story that gets
the most clicks, even when acknowledged to not be true,
(16:49):
is never written about and clicked on the way the
lie was. The lie is the juicy thing. And when
an organization, you know, the police, corporation, a team whatever,
can profit off of vilifying someone, they will, and that
(17:12):
fire will burn so big and so bright, and when
it's put out, it's not burning anymore. It doesn't get
the eyeballs. And that is something I mean, it's a
reckoning our society needs to have because to your point,
to put people through this, to rip them apart in shreds,
(17:39):
it is debilitating. You don't get to be the same,
even if you are a courageous enough person to put
your life back together. And I don't think people get it.
And maybe people who you know have been through things
that have given them PTSD just get each other. I'm
(18:00):
really fascinated by your choice to seek out communication with
the prosecutor. To choose to do that, was that something
you realized you needed to heal or was it something
you hoped would help you expand your understanding. Did it
(18:25):
give you any kind of closure?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that was a word that I was chasing, right,
was closure. And I feel like anyone who has been
hurt by another human being can relate to this. Yeah,
you want to know if the person who hurt you
knows they.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Hurt you and knows that it was wrong, and.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You want to know if they're sorry, Like you just
want to know, like you want to know, and you
want to know why they hurt you, and like, and
I had this, I think my experience because it was
pitched in this like criminal justice system, very adversarial positioning.
(19:13):
I had this idea that if I tried to approach
my you know, my adversary, my prosecutor, my he was
like my white whale, my Mount Everest, you know, like
he was just this like this entity. A part of
me thought, if I could just convince him that I'm innocent,
(19:37):
maybe I'll be okay, Maybe I'll I'll be okay, Like
because I'm not okay.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I'm not okay.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I don't under like this horrible thing took over my life.
I survived, but like I am, I'm still just carrying
this the burden of someone else's crime for the rest
of my life. Can I be Okay, can I just
convince him? And if I can't, like, can I just
(20:05):
get some understanding of why? Because I did, deep down
feel like he wasn't an evil person, right, Like he
wasn't evil in the way that the person who murdered.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
My roommate was evil.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Right, and even like this person, like I've you know,
since come to think like maybe he was like out
of his mind on drugs, Like who knows what was
going on? Like I've honestly not investigated him as much
because I'm less interested in humanizing him.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I'm trying to humanize everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
But like, let's start with who I can first, And so,
like I'm trying to I'm trying to do for my
prosecutor what he did not do for me, right, which
is give him the benefit of the doubt, and and
try to imagine a world in which he had good
intentions right and did not purposefully put an innocent twenty
(21:02):
year old girl in prison, right, Okay, So let's begin
from there. And so I wanted to do that one
to do him justice because I did not want to
commit the same kind of crime that had been committed
against me. And I'm a deeply, deeply curious person. I
(21:26):
was very very curious to see what would happen if
instead of approaching him in the way that anyone would
expect me to, which was to you know, shake my
fist at him and.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Blame him and yell at him and be like what
the fuck?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What if? Instead I tried to find common ground and
I tried to find some kind of understanding and agreement
with this person. Yeah, and so that's what I set
out to do. And at first I thought I would
(22:07):
only be able to do this in person, Like you know,
you know how those like I had this like idea
in my head, you know how these two people just
are in a room with each other, just looking into
each other's eyes and like recognize their humanity.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Like I wanted a moment like that.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And then the pandemic happened and so there was no
face to face meetings happening at all. But weirdly that
actually worked out in my favor because I just spent
two years over the pandemic corresponding with this man and
(22:44):
not necessarily demanding that he give me answers about the case.
More just allowing him to tell me what he wanted
to tell me, and being willing to share with him
things about my life that I challenged myself to be
(23:07):
okay with sharing with him, Like, you know, this is
how i've this is how my family celebrates the holidays.
Here's a picture of me and my sisters, like very
just real human being kind of stuff. Yeah, And over
the course of that correspondence, we developed I don't know
(23:30):
how to define our relationship. It is some kind of relationship.
It's not exactly a friendship, although it is one that
is based upon mutual trust and respect.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
There I think that.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
There are some I think that there are some things
that we even like about each other. There's some things
that we have in common. He's also kind of a
big nerd and so like he's a huge fan of
Lord of the Rings, so you know, like just these
like weird little details and then and I think it
(24:18):
meant it was the thing that surprised me, and I
think is a valuable thing for people to consider.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Just consider. I'm not saying that everyone should do this
thing that I did, well, yes, but I was.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Shocked by the number of positive things that resulted from
my approach that I was not expecting. Wow, like the
fact that this man who at one point in my
life was describing how I was taunting and torturing another
(25:02):
young woman now turned around and said that I was
the sweetest and most compassionate and nonviolent person that he'd
ever met, and.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Who jet he genuinely likes and cares about.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Did that allow you to unclench a little bit? Was
there some release of something? I know you can't ever
do it all the way your life was altered forever.
There are people who will believe something that isn't true
about you forever. And I have my own experience with that,
(25:45):
and it is nowhere near the same as yours, And
it like sometimes if I let myself focus on it,
I don't sleep for days. So I can't fathom that,
you know, you would ever be able to say, oh, yeah,
like this thing helped me heal, and I let it go.
But I almost wonder even a little, you know, if
(26:08):
like if it was this tight, if this thing that
has shifted with your prosecutor has just given you like
a little bit more space, or do you think what
it's done is just reaffirm your own choice to be
compassionate because it does remind you that things you might
have once thought impossible are possible.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know what it shifted for me.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
This feeling like this man had control over my life.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
That was the big shift.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Wow, was realizing like this man had like for the
longest time, was this boogeyman in my mind who had
taken my life and molded it in his own nightmarish
imagination and he had all of this power over me.
(27:03):
That's what it felt like psychologically, was here was this
person between me and my well being?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Was this person right? And that went away when I,
like when I finally was like.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh, he's just a person with all of the flaws
that a person has.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He's just this this feeling.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
You know, irrational thing and in a way like so
vulnerable in my hand. Now, wow, he is not this big,
scary monster of a being. He's just a dude. He shranked,
he shrank in his like in his scariness, and there
(27:52):
was he was no longer an obstacle between me and
my self actualization.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yes, and wow, that's really profound.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I did not expect that to happen, but like that,
I think that is where I'm a firm believer of
looking the thing that scares you in the eye, because
it is only once we turn around from the thing
we're running from and look at in the eye that
it actually diminishes down to the size that it really is. Yea,
and you can really like see what you have control over.
(28:27):
And so like when I you know, when I wrote free,
I called it free because I have been chasing my
freedom ever since it was stolen from me by this
man right, And it was only once arriving and meeting
with him that I realized that he was not the
barrier to me feeling free. It was me right, And
(28:51):
so I had I had to get to a place
where I could affirm my existence, that I could affirm
my identity. That I could and I didn't need him
necessarily to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And so that's big. That was a big thing.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
That's big.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was really big. And so this is why I say, like,
I don't necessarily recommend that everyone do what I did,
but at least, just like hear it from me at
the very least, like, yes, whoever you think is between
you and your own actualization is not actually the obstacle,
(29:31):
Like he's not, he's not.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
But I don't know that you could have right sized him.
I don't know that you could have shrunk him back
to his human self from this boogeyman's self if you
hadn't confronted him right. And everyone's going to have their
own path, everyone's going to have their own journey. But
I do believe that on the road to healing is
(29:54):
recalibrating the size of your obstacle to get in touch
with your own size, your own power. And it makes
me really curious as a fellow language lover, which means
a fellow story lover. I think about the fact that
you know, you've written these two beautiful books, you advocate
(30:17):
for people, you use your story as something, and it's
now becoming a narrative story. You know, in my world,
it's coming to screens, and you've executive produced the series
for our friends at home. It's called The Twisted Tale
of Amanda Knox. It's coming out on Hulu August twentieth,
(30:41):
and I'm so thrilled that it's from you. Me too,
And I wonder, you know, I wonder what it was
like from this wiser place where you can hold more
space for yourself and other people and even this man,
(31:02):
where you have had to learn to live with the
fact that there will be people who will never believe you,
and that is like an open wound. How did you
choose to go back? Do you think serializing it and
allowing people to see it and allowing people to watch
(31:23):
what happened to you happen? Does that also in a
way feel like you're writing yourself another permission slip to
be free totally?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And I think one thing that I think is going
to be really important for people coming into this series
to know is that it is very intense. Just as
a heads up, I'm really proud of this thing that
(31:55):
we've created, Me and Monica and the rest of the
crew together at this very very powerful and important.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Valuable, beautiful thing. Yeah, and it is. It is very thoughtful,
It is very purposeful.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Its interest is in humanizing these extreme stories and experiences
and unpacking them and understanding them and also doing justice
to what really happened, And what really happened was very
(32:33):
very bad. Like it's going to be really hard to watch.
I hope that in seeing it, I think seeing it
makes it real for people in ways that me just
describing it is different. It has a different impact. Grace
(33:01):
Van Patten, who plays me is an amazing actress, and
she has so fully embodied this young person who had everything.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Going for her until the world fell apart.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Like she has really really brought that to life in
a way that I think is I think she should
get all the awards for because the amount of work
that she has put in to.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Do this, do this, to do this thing is insane.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And there are things that I'm accomplishing in this that
I really care about, Like I want people to know
what happens in interrogation rooms. I want you to know
what happens in a prison cell. I want people to
know what happens in a courtroom, because a lot of
us do not have these experiences, and yet we have
this sense of entitlement to judge people who have these experiences.
(34:00):
Want to counterbalance that, and then on the flip side
of that, just from a human standpoint, like stories are
an incredible thing because they're a way of taking what matters.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And keeping it alive.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And that includes Meredith, that includes me, that includes the
life that she and I could have had before she
and the truth were buried.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That's why we tell stories, because the truth matters, and
because the people who have lived them matter, and so
all of this to say that it's I I feel
really fortunate and grateful to have this role, ye, because
someone like me normally does not get to do this. Yeah.
(35:03):
Typically our stories are told without our consent and without
our cooperation.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
And they're often taken from you in that way. Again,
to be made a story, to be treated like a
character rather than a person, it is a repeated violation
of yourself. And I am so overjoyed, which is a
weird thing. It's a weird word to choose for subject
matter like this, But I am overjoyed for you that
(35:31):
you get the chance to take it back, and that
you get not only the chance to take it back,
but that you get to alchemize this really horrific thing
by telling the truth about it into information that people
can experience, that they can have a dialogue with, that
(35:54):
could shape public understanding of wrong convictions, that could chip
away at that bullshit idea that innocent people don't go
to prison, that can illuminate the fact that most people
who have experiences in the criminal justice system do not
have experiences with Olivia Benson on SVU right. And I
(36:15):
say that as a person who you know It's one
of my favorite shows of all time, and I got
to work with Marishka on it for a long time.
I know why those heroes matter to us, but more
often than not, when we are in those spaces in life,
that's not the person you encounter. And so I feel
hopeful for you that the series will not just change
(36:40):
the narrative around your case, but that it will help
us ask better questions about the system in general.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
You're here.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a
word from our sponsors on the precipice of this coming out,
and it's making me think about what you spoke about earlier,
finding purpose, if not positivity in your work in prison
(37:16):
while you were there, in the ways that you could
help others. Do you feel that same sense of purpose
with this or has the amount of work and creativity,
even though you have to rehash painful things, has it
also been able to be positive or joyful as you've
(37:40):
gone through it?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
So? Yes, so in the same way that like in prison,
at a certain point you just look around and go,
what do I have to give? Coming out of coming
out of prison? I constantly am feeling the same way,
like what do I have to give. What do I
have to offer here? And this feels like something that
(38:06):
I have to offer. I've really, really thought and felt deeply,
and I feel like the things that I have learned
in the process of thinking and feeling deeply about what
happened have led me to valuable insights that I want
to share with people.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, and then on the flip.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Side, like one thing that really I did not again,
I did not expect. But when you throw yourself wholeheartedly
and commit to a project, be it meeting face to
face with your prosecutor or you know, executive producing a
show about the worst experience of your life, there I
(38:46):
have always found myself encountering unexpected challenges but also unexpected blessings, like,
for instance, the ability to say goodbye to things that
I didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to before.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I was on set and at a certain point, you know,
they built perfectly, They recreated perfectly our apartment to like
from the footage, like everything, the notes that were written
on the refrigerator, like everything was exactly as it was.
(39:32):
And my showrunner, who's just so thoughtful o kJ, she
was like, Hey, do you want some time alone in here,
and so you know, while they're off, you know, filming
something else, I just got to like sit in my
apartment one last time. Yeah, And the last time I
(39:56):
got to do that was, you know, thelast time I
was there was when we discovered a crime scene. So
like I never I never got to say goodbye. I
never got my stuff back, like I.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Never like they were there.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It was to the point where like they had put
socks on the drying rack and I was like, those
are my socks, And I felt like this tremendous impulse
to like take my stuff back home with me, And
they even like gathered a few of the things and
and packaged them up so that I could finally take
them home with me. So like being able to just
(40:32):
like say goodbye to something. But I never thought that
I would get the opportunity to say goodbye to and
to like honor this this experience of being sharing a
home with this young women, Like, yeah, I didn't get
to do that, And then surprisingly I did. And so
(40:53):
I had like some very you know, very high quality
immersion therapy. I don't think anyone was really people thought
it was part of the project, but there it was.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That's really beautiful. I mean it allows you to tap
into something that's so primal and so human about ritual
and when so much of what you must have thought
before all of this would be the ritual and rhythm
of your life never would be to go back. I mean,
(41:30):
it's it almost is like the first question I asked you,
if you could, you know, bend space time essentially if
you could go backwards for a day and you got
to go backwards, and I would imagine that it was
incredibly healing, like in your.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Body it was.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And to your point that we don't have these rituals
in our society to like honor and grieve the lives
that we had before life hit up, like before the
future came and struck and became the present.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Have a lot of grieving that I've been able to
do in the process of creating this work. Yeah, that
I'm so so grateful for because otherwise that grief is
just like a clenched fist in your body, and so
like there is a there is especially in the making
(42:30):
of this there's been a feeling of like oh, just
release and like, Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I think that's such a gift for us about the
way you choose to share. I think a lot of
people are afraid of grief m M. But grieving is
actually such a joyous thing because it's a release. It's
what makes space for the good things, for the light
(43:00):
to come back into your body, being space life. And
I I wonder you know now after all of this,
you know, your face lights up when you talk about
your life, your family, your daughter, you know, finding all
of that. You know the quote unquote picket fence happy
(43:21):
ending totally? Is it? Is it something that you find
that you think about differently than you thought you would before.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Certainly, Oh, certainly because I'm hype. You know how I
mentioned my weird little PTSD response of hyper Yeah, the
hypervigilants or like just the fear, Like it's hard for
me to just experience positive things in my life, just
positively right like have it hasn't stopped me from you know,
(43:53):
having a family and having children, but like, as soon
as these good things are such an integral part of
my life, I can't help but be afraid of them
being taken from me. And so that's where that like
weird twitch response happens. And I have to my practice
(44:15):
now is in acknowledging the twitch and acknowledging that there's like,
that's not a crazy thing to think. It is not
crazy to be so in love with your child and
to be utterly terrified that something bad would happen to them.
Like that is a normal and rational thing to think.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
And it's not the only thing. It is a thing,
and it is a thing that makes you hyper aware
of just how precious all of it is because it's
all happening right now, and so do not be distracted.
That I feel is the feeling that I feel.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Deep deep, deep in my bones.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Uncertainty is the principle of the universe. Impermanence is the
principle of the universe. I don't know what is going
to happen, and so I just have to hold on
to what matters to me while I can. Yeah, and
that's all I can do.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
But it's beautiful. And the thing is, you know it
in a way most people will not, but it's true
for everyone. You know, it's a it's a lesson that
you get to share with us. And maybe that's it,
you know, maybe working on feeling the response and then
acknowledging that the fear is okay and normal, and you're
(45:43):
allowed to pick the other things as your area of focus.
You know, your daughter's laugh, your enjoyment of being with
her and in your in your home and with your
partner and all these things. Does that do you think
that is your work progress right now? Or because you
are in this moment where even more is getting free,
(46:05):
is the work in progress something on the horizon line,
something something that feels like a newer practice.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I mean the new The work in progress for me
is yes, that like juggling all of those immense feelings
at once. It's almost like pre grief, like the grief
of knowing that, like something that you have in this
moment is going to go away eventually.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Like I feel a.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Lot of pre grief now, and that's okay because like
I don't want to. It's not like an alarm bell
going off. Like if it was an alarm bell going
off and I started feeling panicky and clingy and like
grasping at something that I know I can't hold on
to forever, that would be a negative way to experience it. Instead,
(46:57):
it's just like the pre grief reminds me to really
appreciate the thing while I have it, and so that
is that is the work in progress, is like making
that the right balance. And then of course it's the
balancing life, career, ambitions, creative ideas. Like I feel like
I have a lot coming out of me right now
(47:20):
because I have been processing and like there there.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
You know these two moments in your life.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
You're either in your receiving and processing mode or you're
in your like producing mode. And right now I feel
like I have I've been such fertile ground that has
processed and and ground up and like churned through all
of this like really rich dark material, and now I
have it all come. I have like all of these
(47:49):
green shoots sprouting out of me, and so I'm like,
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, you've literally you've been in that chrysalis experiences. You've composted,
and you're making all new nutrient rich life. How beautiful.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah, it's a great place to be in.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, I'm really happy for you.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Congratulations on you know, on the books, and congrats on
the show. I can't wait to rehash it once it's out.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Yeah, I can't wait for you to see it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
I'm excited. Well, thank you for joining me. Today, this
has been wonderful.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Thank you
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome
back to part two of Work in Progress with the
inimitable Amanda Knox. Let's continue. It's so amazing, you know,
(00:24):
all these years later, that you've turned this into not
only that you're an advocate, but you've also turned your
advocacy into projects like the Scarlet Letter Reports. You know.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Ah, yeah, thanks for bringing up the Scarlet Letter Report.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I just think it's so amazing because you in it,
you're examining the very gendered nature of public shaming and
the way we treat women is just horrific, and I've
been through it in my way. Obviously we're talking about
your story today. I think about what was done to
Britney Spears. I think about what just happened with Karen Reid,
(01:00):
you know, and you've done things to remove the veil
and particularly examine the ways women are treated. And I
want to talk about all of those lessons. But before
we zoom out to the way the world treats us,
I guess I just want to know. You know, obviously,
(01:21):
people can read your books. I don't want you to
have to recount your whole story.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a lot well it's a big story.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
But I think about the fear I feel imagining that
moment to be falsely convicted of a crime so egregiously
with no real evidence, to be raked over the coals
in the court of public opinion because they didn't have
(01:51):
the evidence, so they needed people just not to like
you were a kid, how did you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Hope?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Because I think it's a miracle that you're not sitting
in the corner eating your own hair right now. So
for later, Yeah, were you questioning your sanity? Were you
questioning reality? What did you do to remain tethered to
the truth in your young life in this place?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, So to answer your question, absolutely, Like everything went
through my mind to try to explain what was happening
to me and why, And I mean I went through
I feel like all the stages of grief as well,
where part of it was denial, Like I spent a
while there in prison feeling like I was living somebody
(02:48):
else's life by mistake, and that like some adult was
going to figure it out and give me my life back.
So like that was also the kid mentality that I had,
where I was like, I'm in over my head because
I'm a kid, and I need some adult who's in charge,
(03:09):
who is sane, to like fix the situation. Like it
was like, yeah, that's that's how it felt for quite
a bit of time. Was like I'm in a tough situation,
but if I just endure for long enough, the adults
(03:31):
will will do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's what it felt like.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And like in those early days, I actually get myself
through just the time and the insanity, like just sitting there,
and I mean, there's there were so many bad things though,
Like it's there's the courtroom bad things like having to
(03:54):
listen to people talk in very gruesome detail about the
murder of your friend, but then also putting the knife
in your hand, or like listening to my prosecutor like
like create this story about like putting words, literal words
(04:19):
into what I supposedly said to Meredith as I'm like
taunting and torturing her to death.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Like just just having to sit there.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've just like while this is just happening around me,
like it's no big deal, and not be able to
do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So just like sitting there, and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know what I think about for you, I think
about the way men just are allowed to sit and court.
But women, everything you do is picked apart. And if
you cry, maybe you're crying because you're guilty. If you
don't cry, you're a frigid bitch who has no feelings.
You must be a murderer. If you don't like, no
matter what you do, they're gonna tell you what's wrong.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Right. If you look good, they say, oh, look she's
trying to like use her feminine wiles to like seduce
the judge. If you don't look good, it's like, oh,
look at her, you know, Like it's just it's just NonStop,
but it it really is truly picking a human being,
a part constantly being viewed in the worst possible light.
(05:25):
It's utterly debilitating. It makes you feel like nothing you
say or do matters. It will only make things worse.
It makes you just want to disappear. And I mean,
like I was doing little things, like you know, I
was an athletic kid, and so like I had little
mantras when I was being you know, riding my bike
(05:48):
up a steep hill where I would just do, like
the little engine that could, I think I can, I
think I can.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I think I can.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And sometimes like I would just be sitting there in court,
just going I think I can't, I think I can.
I think like I can. I just need to get
through this moment and have you ever Actually I'm curious
because I feel like I may be the biggest fan
of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That I feel like is.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Like love the underrated show ever, but like that show
extremely speaks to me. Also just because she's like, anybody
can survive anything for ten seconds, like that is that
is real? Like I don't know, I don't know about
like the next hour, but I can deal with this
hour and then I'll deal with the next hour next.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
After the verdict, that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Became an even more important part of my ability to survive,
because now I wasn't just waiting for a verdict. I
had a twenty six year sentence sitting in front of me,
and I had to grieve my entire life, Like the
life that I thought I was going to get to
have with like a family and a career like that
was gone. And I was now imagining emerging from prison,
(07:00):
obsolete and unmoored and unrecognizable and just like a body
that was now in a world that had moved on
without me. And that was primed to want to punish me.
That's what I would That's the forecast of my life.
(07:21):
And I did not know how to live that life. Yeah,
so I stopped trying to figure out how to live it,
and I started trying to figure out how to live
just today, Like if I could find a reason to
live today, that would be enough, and then I worry
about tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Or what did you start to lean on? I mean,
as a as a person who loves literature, were you
were you reading a lot? Were you thinking to yourself, well,
maybe i'll get a degree here. I know people do that.
You know, it does seem to be a pursuit for people,
particularly who are falsely convict. Did you know we've learned
(08:01):
so much from organizations like the Innocence Project? I mean, what,
what did you think your coping strategies would be.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
A great question. So the pipeline for getting a degree
didn't exist in my prison, so there wasn't really an
avenue for me to do that. I did have a
connection with a professor at the UDB who like continued
to help me like try to gain like continue getting
(08:33):
you know, credits for work that I would send into him,
like translation work, and stuff, but like, I didn't really
have a clear sense of being able to have a
degree right. Instead, what I had a clear sense of
was reading voraciously. I read a lot, and I looked
(08:54):
around me, and I tried to figure out how I
could have a meaningful existence within the confines of the
situation that I was in. And kind of ironically, I
had set out to become a translator, and now here
I am, over two years in prison, fluent in Italian,
(09:15):
and there are a number of people around me who
either are foreigners also and so are not fluent in
Italian and need a translator wow, or they are Italian
speakers but they don't know how to read or write.
So suddenly I realized that I was actually a very
(09:37):
valuable resource, and that sort of became my unofficial job
and sense of purpose. While I was inside, I was
the translator because there was no translator, and I was
the scribe because there was no scribe.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And so every day, every day.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I was brought into other people's cells to help them
read and write, or you know, do all those translate,
do all those kinds of things, or if someone had
to go to the doctor and needed to explain some
kind of ailment. I went with them to the doctor
to help them communicate, because there just wasn't that function
in the prison where I was at. So Weirdly, once
(10:21):
I had sort of accepted that I am a prisoner
and this is my reality, and my real reality isn't
outside of prison, I was able to find something very
purposeful to do. Did that make me feel happy? No,
but at least gave me a feeling of purposefulness. So
(10:47):
and that was enough, at least for the amount of
time that I was there.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Right, Well, yeah, something something to do, something to occupy
the mind. And I'm sure you know emotionally it helped
that it was helpful work. When everything I mean, what
is even the word, my God, when everything shifted was righted,
(11:13):
when you were exonerated, when they caught the actual killer,
the evidenced killer, whose fingerprints and all the rest of
it were there the whole time, part of me thinks
the relief must have been overwhelming, and then part of
(11:38):
me thinks to myself, but by then you were experiencing
such trauma, you'd experienced such trauma on repeat. Were you
even able to feel relieved? Did you have a moment
where you thought everything might go back to normal or
did you know that there was no normal to go
back to?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Good question.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So my wrongful convict did not work itself out the
way that you typically hear about wrongful convictions in the US,
and that's in part because I'm a woman. In most
like classic examples of a wrongful conviction, particularly here in
(12:19):
the US, what happened was somebody got you know, murdered,
and they didn't have advanced DNA technology at the time,
or they just didn't test things back then, and so
they just get the wrong guy. And then twenty years
go by and they finally test the DNA and it
(12:41):
reveals that the person who was convicted was actually innocent,
and it also like reveals who the real killer was,
and so there's this like moment of like baugh and
everyone realizes the truth and then the person who you
know is innocent gets out, the person who did it
goes in. Everyone's had justice is done, you know, wedding bells, whatever.
(13:05):
And that was not how it worked out in my case,
because two weeks after the you know, Meredith's murder, we
already knew who the murderer was, right, So it's not
that I was eventually exonerated because they finally discovered who.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
The real killer was.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
They knew who the real killer was all along, it's
just that by the time they had identified him, they
had already arrested me, and so instead of admitting.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
That they were wrong, they doubled down.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
They doubled down, and the police argued that I had
committed the crime with the person who had actually committed
this crime. And so when I was acquitted, it wasn't
it wasn't this like sweeping universal acknowledgment of my innocence
the way that it would have been otherwise.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Instead it was, oh, well, they got.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
One of the murderers, but the other ones got off,
you know, they got off on a technicality.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And so to this day, to this day, in Italy.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
There is a large portion of the population that still
believes that I am guilty of committing this crime, despite
the fact that there is no evidence of my involvement
at all. And that is because the way that the
information was revealed to them, and the story, the way
to interpret that information, the way that was revealed to them.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Set up a expectation of.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
My guilt, and this sort of like guilt presumptive assumption
about me and it's just this feeling, like it's not
a great feeling when like people to this day, even
though I have, like you know, the exoneration, I have
the paperwork, I have the proof of my innocence all
of that, people to this day are still wondering like
(15:14):
and and a lot of and a lot of it
has to do with again, the way that we vilify
women publicly, right, like you say that you're not right
and you know and and you know, maybe she's innocent,
but she's deeply.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Unsettling, Like there's just like this, like there's something guilty
about her.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I don't know what it is, and so like there's
that Like I did come out of prison, So to
answer to finally answer your question, I was acquitted. I
was released from prison, and I was utterly overwhelmed with relief.
But that relief was quickly tinged with the realization that
(15:59):
I did not get to go back to just being
an anonymous college student.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I was forever branded the girl who was accused of murder.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yes, and I would.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Be living with that being the role that had been
cast for me. That was the trajectory of my life,
was carrying this scarlet letter with me forever. Right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
We'll be back in just a minute after a few
words from our favorite sponsors. The story that makes you famous,
the story that garners the attention, the story that gets
the most clicks, even when acknowledged to not be true,
(16:49):
is never written about and clicked on the way the
lie was. The lie is the juicy thing. And when
an organization, you know, the police, corporation, a team whatever,
can profit off of vilifying someone, they will, and that
(17:12):
fire will burn so big and so bright, and when
it's put out, it's not burning anymore. It doesn't get
the eyeballs. And that is something I mean, it's a
reckoning our society needs to have because to your point,
to put people through this, to rip them apart in shreds,
(17:39):
it is debilitating. You don't get to be the same,
even if you are a courageous enough person to put
your life back together. And I don't think people get it.
And maybe people who you know have been through things
that have given them PTSD just get each other. I'm
(18:00):
really fascinated by your choice to seek out communication with
the prosecutor. To choose to do that, was that something
you realized you needed to heal or was it something
you hoped would help you expand your understanding. Did it
(18:25):
give you any kind of closure?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that was a word that I was chasing, right,
was closure. And I feel like anyone who has been
hurt by another human being can relate to this. Yeah,
you want to know if the person who hurt you
knows they.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Hurt you and knows that it was wrong, and.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You want to know if they're sorry, Like you just
want to know, like you want to know, and you
want to know why they hurt you, and like, and
I had this, I think my experience because it was
pitched in this like criminal justice system, very adversarial positioning.
(19:13):
I had this idea that if I tried to approach
my you know, my adversary, my prosecutor, my he was
like my white whale, my Mount Everest, you know, like
he was just this like this entity. A part of
me thought, if I could just convince him that I'm innocent,
(19:37):
maybe I'll be okay, Maybe I'll I'll be okay, Like
because I'm not okay.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I'm not okay.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
I don't under like this horrible thing took over my life.
I survived, but like I am, I'm still just carrying
this the burden of someone else's crime for the rest
of my life. Can I be Okay, can I just
convince him? And if I can't, like, can I just
(20:05):
get some understanding of why? Because I did, deep down
feel like he wasn't an evil person, right, Like he
wasn't evil in the way that the person who murdered.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
My roommate was evil.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Right, and even like this person, like I've you know,
since come to think like maybe he was like out
of his mind on drugs, Like who knows what was
going on? Like I've honestly not investigated him as much
because I'm less interested in humanizing him.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I'm trying to humanize everyone.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
But like, let's start with who I can first, And so,
like I'm trying to I'm trying to do for my
prosecutor what he did not do for me, right, which
is give him the benefit of the doubt, and and
try to imagine a world in which he had good
intentions right and did not purposefully put an innocent twenty
(21:02):
year old girl in prison, right, Okay, So let's begin
from there. And so I wanted to do that one
to do him justice because I did not want to
commit the same kind of crime that had been committed
against me. And I'm a deeply, deeply curious person. I
(21:26):
was very very curious to see what would happen if
instead of approaching him in the way that anyone would
expect me to, which was to you know, shake my
fist at him and.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Blame him and yell at him and be like what
the fuck?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What if? Instead I tried to find common ground and
I tried to find some kind of understanding and agreement
with this person. Yeah, and so that's what I set
out to do. And at first I thought I would
(22:07):
only be able to do this in person, Like you know,
you know how those like I had this like idea
in my head, you know how these two people just
are in a room with each other, just looking into
each other's eyes and like recognize their humanity.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Like I wanted a moment like that.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And then the pandemic happened and so there was no
face to face meetings happening at all. But weirdly that
actually worked out in my favor because I just spent
two years over the pandemic corresponding with this man and
(22:44):
not necessarily demanding that he give me answers about the case.
More just allowing him to tell me what he wanted
to tell me, and being willing to share with him
things about my life that I challenged myself to be
(23:07):
okay with sharing with him, Like, you know, this is
how i've this is how my family celebrates the holidays.
Here's a picture of me and my sisters, like very
just real human being kind of stuff. Yeah, And over
the course of that correspondence, we developed I don't know
(23:30):
how to define our relationship. It is some kind of relationship.
It's not exactly a friendship, although it is one that
is based upon mutual trust and respect.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
There I think that.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
There are some I think that there are some things
that we even like about each other. There's some things
that we have in common. He's also kind of a
big nerd and so like he's a huge fan of
Lord of the Rings, so you know, like just these
like weird little details and then and I think it
(24:18):
meant it was the thing that surprised me, and I
think is a valuable thing for people to consider.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Just consider. I'm not saying that everyone should do this
thing that I did, well, yes, but I was.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Shocked by the number of positive things that resulted from
my approach that I was not expecting. Wow, like the
fact that this man who at one point in my
life was describing how I was taunting and torturing another
(25:02):
young woman now turned around and said that I was
the sweetest and most compassionate and nonviolent person that he'd
ever met, and.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Who jet he genuinely likes and cares about.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Did that allow you to unclench a little bit? Was
there some release of something? I know you can't ever
do it all the way your life was altered forever.
There are people who will believe something that isn't true
about you forever. And I have my own experience with that,
(25:45):
and it is nowhere near the same as yours, And
it like sometimes if I let myself focus on it,
I don't sleep for days. So I can't fathom that,
you know, you would ever be able to say, oh, yeah,
like this thing helped me heal, and I let it go.
But I almost wonder even a little, you know, if
(26:08):
like if it was this tight, if this thing that
has shifted with your prosecutor has just given you like
a little bit more space, or do you think what
it's done is just reaffirm your own choice to be
compassionate because it does remind you that things you might
have once thought impossible are possible.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know what it shifted for me.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
This feeling like this man had control over my life.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
That was the big shift.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Wow, was realizing like this man had like for the
longest time, was this boogeyman in my mind who had
taken my life and molded it in his own nightmarish
imagination and he had all of this power over me.
(27:03):
That's what it felt like psychologically, was here was this
person between me and my well being?
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Was this person right? And that went away when I,
like when I finally was like.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh, he's just a person with all of the flaws
that a person has.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He's just this this feeling.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
You know, irrational thing and in a way like so
vulnerable in my hand. Now, wow, he is not this big,
scary monster of a being. He's just a dude. He shranked,
he shrank in his like in his scariness, and there
(27:52):
was he was no longer an obstacle between me and
my self actualization.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yes, and wow, that's really profound.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I did not expect that to happen, but like that,
I think that is where I'm a firm believer of
looking the thing that scares you in the eye, because
it is only once we turn around from the thing
we're running from and look at in the eye that
it actually diminishes down to the size that it really is. Yea,
and you can really like see what you have control over.
(28:27):
And so like when I you know, when I wrote free,
I called it free because I have been chasing my
freedom ever since it was stolen from me by this
man right, And it was only once arriving and meeting
with him that I realized that he was not the
barrier to me feeling free. It was me right, And
(28:51):
so I had I had to get to a place
where I could affirm my existence, that I could affirm
my identity. That I could and I didn't need him
necessarily to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And so that's big. That was a big thing.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
That's big.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was really big. And so this is why I say, like,
I don't necessarily recommend that everyone do what I did,
but at least, just like hear it from me at
the very least, like, yes, whoever you think is between
you and your own actualization is not actually the obstacle,
(29:31):
Like he's not, he's not.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
But I don't know that you could have right sized him.
I don't know that you could have shrunk him back
to his human self from this boogeyman's self if you
hadn't confronted him right. And everyone's going to have their
own path, everyone's going to have their own journey. But
I do believe that on the road to healing is
(29:54):
recalibrating the size of your obstacle to get in touch
with your own size, your own power. And it makes
me really curious as a fellow language lover, which means
a fellow story lover. I think about the fact that
you know, you've written these two beautiful books, you advocate
(30:17):
for people, you use your story as something, and it's
now becoming a narrative story. You know, in my world,
it's coming to screens, and you've executive produced the series
for our friends at home. It's called The Twisted Tale
of Amanda Knox. It's coming out on Hulu August twentieth,
(30:41):
and I'm so thrilled that it's from you. Me too,
And I wonder, you know, I wonder what it was
like from this wiser place where you can hold more
space for yourself and other people and even this man,
(31:02):
where you have had to learn to live with the
fact that there will be people who will never believe you,
and that is like an open wound. How did you
choose to go back? Do you think serializing it and
allowing people to see it and allowing people to watch
(31:23):
what happened to you happen? Does that also in a
way feel like you're writing yourself another permission slip to
be free totally?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
And I think one thing that I think is going
to be really important for people coming into this series
to know is that it is very intense. Just as
a heads up, I'm really proud of this thing that
(31:55):
we've created, Me and Monica and the rest of the
crew together at this very very powerful and important.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Valuable, beautiful thing. Yeah, and it is. It is very thoughtful,
It is very purposeful.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Its interest is in humanizing these extreme stories and experiences
and unpacking them and understanding them and also doing justice
to what really happened, And what really happened was very
(32:33):
very bad. Like it's going to be really hard to watch.
I hope that in seeing it, I think seeing it
makes it real for people in ways that me just
describing it is different. It has a different impact. Grace
(33:01):
Van Patten, who plays me is an amazing actress, and
she has so fully embodied this young person who had everything.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Going for her until the world fell apart.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Like she has really really brought that to life in
a way that I think is I think she should
get all the awards for because the amount of work
that she has put in to.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Do this, do this, to do this thing is insane.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And there are things that I'm accomplishing in this that
I really care about, Like I want people to know
what happens in interrogation rooms. I want you to know
what happens in a prison cell. I want people to
know what happens in a courtroom, because a lot of
us do not have these experiences, and yet we have
this sense of entitlement to judge people who have these experiences.
(34:00):
Want to counterbalance that, and then on the flip side
of that, just from a human standpoint, like stories are
an incredible thing because they're a way of taking what matters.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And keeping it alive.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And that includes Meredith, that includes me, that includes the
life that she and I could have had before she
and the truth were buried.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That's why we tell stories, because the truth matters, and
because the people who have lived them matter, and so
all of this to say that it's I I feel
really fortunate and grateful to have this role, ye, because
someone like me normally does not get to do this. Yeah.
(35:03):
Typically our stories are told without our consent and without
our cooperation.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
And they're often taken from you in that way. Again,
to be made a story, to be treated like a
character rather than a person, it is a repeated violation
of yourself. And I am so overjoyed, which is a
weird thing. It's a weird word to choose for subject
matter like this, But I am overjoyed for you that
(35:31):
you get the chance to take it back, and that
you get not only the chance to take it back,
but that you get to alchemize this really horrific thing
by telling the truth about it into information that people
can experience, that they can have a dialogue with, that
(35:54):
could shape public understanding of wrong convictions, that could chip
away at that bullshit idea that innocent people don't go
to prison, that can illuminate the fact that most people
who have experiences in the criminal justice system do not
have experiences with Olivia Benson on SVU right. And I
(36:15):
say that as a person who you know It's one
of my favorite shows of all time, and I got
to work with Marishka on it for a long time.
I know why those heroes matter to us, but more
often than not, when we are in those spaces in life,
that's not the person you encounter. And so I feel
hopeful for you that the series will not just change
(36:40):
the narrative around your case, but that it will help
us ask better questions about the system in general.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
You're here.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a
word from our sponsors on the precipice of this coming out,
and it's making me think about what you spoke about earlier,
finding purpose, if not positivity in your work in prison
(37:16):
while you were there, in the ways that you could
help others. Do you feel that same sense of purpose
with this or has the amount of work and creativity,
even though you have to rehash painful things, has it
also been able to be positive or joyful as you've
(37:40):
gone through it?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
So? Yes, so in the same way that like in prison,
at a certain point you just look around and go,
what do I have to give? Coming out of coming
out of prison? I constantly am feeling the same way,
like what do I have to give. What do I
have to offer here? And this feels like something that
(38:06):
I have to offer. I've really, really thought and felt deeply,
and I feel like the things that I have learned
in the process of thinking and feeling deeply about what
happened have led me to valuable insights that I want
to share with people.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, and then on the flip.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Side, like one thing that really I did not again,
I did not expect. But when you throw yourself wholeheartedly
and commit to a project, be it meeting face to
face with your prosecutor or you know, executive producing a
show about the worst experience of your life, there I
(38:46):
have always found myself encountering unexpected challenges but also unexpected blessings, like,
for instance, the ability to say goodbye to things that
I didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to before.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I was on set and at a certain point, you know,
they built perfectly, They recreated perfectly our apartment to like
from the footage, like everything, the notes that were written
on the refrigerator, like everything was exactly as it was.
(39:32):
And my showrunner, who's just so thoughtful o kJ, she
was like, Hey, do you want some time alone in here,
and so you know, while they're off, you know, filming
something else, I just got to like sit in my
apartment one last time. Yeah, And the last time I
(39:56):
got to do that was, you know, thelast time I
was there was when we discovered a crime scene. So
like I never I never got to say goodbye. I
never got my stuff back, like I.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Never like they were there.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
It was to the point where like they had put
socks on the drying rack and I was like, those
are my socks, And I felt like this tremendous impulse
to like take my stuff back home with me, And
they even like gathered a few of the things and
and packaged them up so that I could finally take
them home with me. So like being able to just
(40:32):
like say goodbye to something. But I never thought that
I would get the opportunity to say goodbye to and
to like honor this this experience of being sharing a
home with this young women, Like, yeah, I didn't get
to do that, And then surprisingly I did. And so
(40:53):
I had like some very you know, very high quality
immersion therapy. I don't think anyone was really people thought
it was part of the project, but there it was.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That's really beautiful. I mean it allows you to tap
into something that's so primal and so human about ritual
and when so much of what you must have thought
before all of this would be the ritual and rhythm
of your life never would be to go back. I mean,
(41:30):
it's it almost is like the first question I asked you,
if you could, you know, bend space time essentially if
you could go backwards for a day and you got
to go backwards, and I would imagine that it was
incredibly healing, like in your.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Body it was.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And to your point that we don't have these rituals
in our society to like honor and grieve the lives
that we had before life hit up, like before the
future came and struck and became the present.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Have a lot of grieving that I've been able to
do in the process of creating this work. Yeah, that
I'm so so grateful for because otherwise that grief is
just like a clenched fist in your body, and so
like there is a there is especially in the making
(42:30):
of this there's been a feeling of like oh, just
release and like, Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I think that's such a gift for us about the
way you choose to share. I think a lot of
people are afraid of grief m M. But grieving is
actually such a joyous thing because it's a release. It's
what makes space for the good things, for the light
(43:00):
to come back into your body, being space life. And
I I wonder you know now after all of this,
you know, your face lights up when you talk about
your life, your family, your daughter, you know, finding all
of that. You know the quote unquote picket fence happy
(43:21):
ending totally? Is it? Is it something that you find
that you think about differently than you thought you would before.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Certainly, Oh, certainly because I'm hype. You know how I
mentioned my weird little PTSD response of hyper Yeah, the
hypervigilants or like just the fear, Like it's hard for
me to just experience positive things in my life, just
positively right like have it hasn't stopped me from you know,
(43:53):
having a family and having children, but like, as soon
as these good things are such an integral part of
my life, I can't help but be afraid of them
being taken from me. And so that's where that like
weird twitch response happens. And I have to my practice
(44:15):
now is in acknowledging the twitch and acknowledging that there's like,
that's not a crazy thing to think. It is not
crazy to be so in love with your child and
to be utterly terrified that something bad would happen to them.
Like that is a normal and rational thing to think.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
And it's not the only thing. It is a thing,
and it is a thing that makes you hyper aware
of just how precious all of it is because it's
all happening right now, and so do not be distracted.
That I feel is the feeling that I feel.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Deep deep, deep in my bones.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Uncertainty is the principle of the universe. Impermanence is the
principle of the universe. I don't know what is going
to happen, and so I just have to hold on
to what matters to me while I can. Yeah, and
that's all I can do.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
But it's beautiful. And the thing is, you know it
in a way most people will not, but it's true
for everyone. You know, it's a it's a lesson that
you get to share with us. And maybe that's it,
you know, maybe working on feeling the response and then
acknowledging that the fear is okay and normal, and you're
(45:43):
allowed to pick the other things as your area of focus.
You know, your daughter's laugh, your enjoyment of being with
her and in your in your home and with your
partner and all these things. Does that do you think
that is your work progress right now? Or because you
are in this moment where even more is getting free,
(46:05):
is the work in progress something on the horizon line,
something something that feels like a newer practice.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I mean the new The work in progress for me
is yes, that like juggling all of those immense feelings
at once. It's almost like pre grief, like the grief
of knowing that, like something that you have in this
moment is going to go away eventually.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Like I feel a.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Lot of pre grief now, and that's okay because like
I don't want to. It's not like an alarm bell
going off. Like if it was an alarm bell going
off and I started feeling panicky and clingy and like
grasping at something that I know I can't hold on
to forever, that would be a negative way to experience it. Instead,
(46:57):
it's just like the pre grief reminds me to really
appreciate the thing while I have it, and so that
is that is the work in progress, is like making
that the right balance. And then of course it's the
balancing life, career, ambitions, creative ideas. Like I feel like
I have a lot coming out of me right now
(47:20):
because I have been processing and like there there.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
You know these two moments in your life.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
You're either in your receiving and processing mode or you're
in your like producing mode. And right now I feel
like I have I've been such fertile ground that has
processed and and ground up and like churned through all
of this like really rich dark material, and now I
have it all come. I have like all of these
(47:49):
green shoots sprouting out of me, and so I'm like,
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, you've literally you've been in that chrysalis experiences. You've composted,
and you're making all new nutrient rich life. How beautiful.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah, it's a great place to be in.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, I'm really happy for you.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Congratulations on you know, on the books, and congrats on
the show. I can't wait to rehash it once it's out.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Yeah, I can't wait for you to see it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
I'm excited. Well, thank you for joining me. Today, this
has been wonderful.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Thank you
Host
Sophia Bush
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