There have been documentaries, movies, and books, but finally Amanda Knox tells her own story, lessons learned and living forward and free! She joins Michael to share her journey and talk about her book, “Free: My Search For Meaning.”
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Previously on your Morning show with Michael del Jono.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You know, these cases come up and I don't know
why we pick the ones we do and we don't
and then they go on to be followed by everybody,
talked about by everybody, documentaries made, books written. But Amanda
Knox was certainly one of those, and it's time she
finally tells her own story Free My Search for Meeting,
Good morning, Amanda Knox for dal Jordan though twenty years old,
(00:29):
that's my daughter's age, and they're twins and they're both
in college. So all this happened to you at my
daughter's age. That makes us feel very personal there abroad. No, well,
that's part of one's plan. I'm thinking. I'm thinking about
that myself. But how this You know there's been books written, documentaries, movies.
(00:50):
How important is it for you to finally have your
say in this book? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
God, tremendously so. And you know, I in a way
that I had my quote say back when I were
my first memoir waiting to be heard, But that was
really about just trying to set the record straight about
this horrible trial and crime. This story Free My Search
for Meaning is what happens on the other side of
that curtain. When you've like over, you're on the other
(01:16):
side of the immediate danger, the immediate existential crisis of
the trauma, and you're now trying to like piece your
life back together and ask yourself, Oh my god, now
that I've been through this experience, who am I? Where
do I belong? How do I Is this just going
to be baggage that I'm caring around for the rest
of my life or is this some way going to
drive some momentum in my life? And you know, it's
(01:38):
a story of a lot of crazy, horrible misadventures that
are very embarrassing, but ultimately I hope people feel really
seen in them. And this oddly triumphant encounter with my
prosecutor that I was set out in without really knowing
what was going to happen and then being very by
(02:00):
the outcome, you.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Kind of touched on the two biggest you know, doing
this interview, I'm thinking, for all the people that have
followed your story that probably are screaming questions at the radio,
how do I ask all of them for them? And
then how do I have my moment My moment with
you is? You know, I'm thinking when I was twenty.
The dumb things I did between I did most of
my dumb things between twenty and thirty, none that had
(02:21):
the misfortune that you did. How do you keep this
from defining your entire life, because it'd be so easy
for that to happen. I mean, when do you get
to move on and live the rest of your life?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, I think that's the trick with trauma, right, You
kind of don't get to just move on, right, Like
you are carrying the experiences that you have in your
most stupid and vulnerable time of your life with you.
But the thing that you like, the moving on part
of it, for me is less about pretending that it
(02:53):
didn't happen and more trying trying to be not just debilitated,
but actually up lifted and empowered by the things that
I've learned from the experience. So I think for me,
I have learned to appreciate what I've been through as
a kind of credentials. In the same way that some
(03:13):
people go to university to get a PhD in biology,
I went to the School of Hard Knocks and got
a PhD and like survival exactly, and I and like
I can look at that now and say this doesn't
define me, but it absolutely is a part of who
I am in the same way to Italy is a
part of who I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Sure. The book is called Free My Search for Meeting
by Amanda Knox, and she's joining us this morning. One
of the things that really struck me is, you know,
we use words like blessings and we think it's money,
good fortune. There is probably some things because of what
you went through that you get kind of like when
somebody's blind has heightened other senses. There's probably some things
(03:55):
from all this bad that is a good you have
that we should be jealous of in a way. How
it affected you powerfully in a positive way?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Oh? One great question, right, Yeah, No, it's you're right, like,
there are so many ways that I feel incredibly lucky.
I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world,
just that I'm alive right now. First of all, because
if I hadn't met my boyfriend five days before this
crime occurred, I would have been raped and murdered too.
So there's that for one thing. But also just the
fact that I spent four years in prison instead of fourteen,
(04:26):
twenty thirty forty like other friends that I've met through
the innocence community. It really puts things into perspective. And
I think one of the things that being stripped down
down to basically nothing but my own mind put me
in contact with is the fact that I am enough,
Like whatever the vicissitudes of life are going to throw
at me, I know that I can be enough for
(04:49):
myself to make life worth living. And then what it
means is that all these blessings that I have in
my life, my family, my children, my career, my voice,
these are all ferries on top of what is ultimately
all that I need. And I'm very, very present with
those things that I know are so fragile and vulnerable
(05:10):
and impermanent.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You may have lost four years, but some people throw
away their entire life not seeing things the way they
should be seeing, being purposed and living in the moment.
I was interested in that. I think the one thing
I can't get my arms around, how on earth do
you get this friendship with the very prosecutor? I mean,
And that gets told in this book like it's never
been told. I think in any of the other documentaries
(05:35):
or books that have been written. That is a strange,
strange friendship.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, yeah, And when I told my friends in the
innocent community that I wanted to reach out to my
prosecutor and see if I could have a non adversarial
conversation with him, they all thought I was crazy. They thought, like,
that's not going to happen. Prosecutors will not ever see
you as a human being. He's never going to admit
that he was wrong and that I had Stockholm syndrome
(06:01):
or something. But like the way that I approached it was,
this person has only ever seen me in the context
of a murder trial, and he is like refusing to
see my humanity be in a way just because of
the nature of that space. And I wanted to see
(06:22):
if I could find some kind of common ground with him,
for him to be like to position us in a
way to recognize each other's humanity. I did not set
out to become his friend, But what I discovered over
the course of time that getting to know each other
and especially him, like he felt very seen by me
in a way that he was not expecting, Like I
(06:44):
have just been incredibly non judgmental towards him, and he
has been very appreciative of that fact and almost looking
to me for a kind of absolution that I am
willing to give him, just like over like, I'm willing
to acknowledge that he is not defined by the worst
thing he's ever right, And I think that he's just
(07:08):
astonished by that fact, and so is very, very like
he cares about me as a human being, and in
his fragility and in perfectness, I care about him.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's an extraordinary story. It's all a part of Free
My Search for Meeting by Amanda Knox, finally telling her
own story. In this book, she'll walk you through a
lot of untold stories, her return to Italy, her extraordinary
relationships that she's developed, and then kind of just re
establish re establishing yourself at home. Has America been mostly excepted?
(07:42):
I can't imagine what it would be like to have
who knows how many millions have studied your life and
your story, and then they have firm opinions like they
lived it, like you did, like they've you know, and
and to think that everybody's talking about you or making
decisions about you, that's got to be so unsettling and
robbing you of the ability to live. That makes telling
(08:05):
this story so important.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, I have to say that, you know, yes, people
in America have been much more accepting of me, And
so when I look at someone like my boyfriend and
co defendant Raphaele Solecchico, who has remained in Italy and
is an Italian person, he's had a much harder time
re establishing a sense of place in his community because
(08:28):
of the stigma and the ostracized ostracization. But even just
like being known for the worst experience of my life
has put me in a position of feeling like I
don't really know where I belong and I felt very lost,
and even those people who believed in me, like, I
don't know it just it felt like I didn't really
(08:48):
have a place and no one really understood exactly what
I had been through. And I was really worried for
a long time that I was just going to feel
so so alone. And it has only been through putting
myself out there and connecting with people and realizing the
sort of universal truths about our lives and our shared
traumas that I've experienced in other people of experienced as well,
(09:12):
that I'm now addicted to, like connecting with people and
building bridges where you wouldn't otherwise think they would be,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It's interesting people that claw their way out of homelessness,
or claw their way through addiction, or have some kind
of tragedy come to them, it's usually what purposes the
rest of their life. They're in a unique position to
make a difference for others. How much is that purpose
in helping others who have been falsely accused or falsely imprisoned?
Kind of giving you away seems like it's stuck in
(09:40):
the same topic, but it's not, and it's moving on
and making a difference in a way that you may
have been uniquely crafted to make such a difference.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, I agree. This is my credentials. This is how
I went to the school of hard knocks, and I
now know how the sausage gets made. And so the
next person who comes along can come to me and say,
I'm just got out of prison, Oh my god, what
do I do? How do I feel like I can
(10:10):
have a say in my story? Or how do I
get a job? Like? All of these just human problems
that a person who has been wrongly convicted, or like
you said, anyone who's been through a traumatic experience. Those
are all questions that I, as someone who's lived through it,
can help with. I'm also on the board of the
Innocent Center, which is an innocence project that is, you know,
(10:32):
works to help free people who are innocent in prison
and the idea of being able to pay it forward
that way and try to change laws to prevent wrongful
convictions from happening in the first place. Like, it's all very,
very fulfilling, and I'm glad that I can actually put
my experience to good use.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I've had a couple of dear friends, loser children, and
the honest truth when you're talking to them is they're
never going to be the same, They're never going to
be better. That's something they're going to carry the rest
of their life, the trauma you went through. All I
can hope is that you are as free as you sound,
and that's to be applauded, and that you'll continue to
find greater and greater purpose in freedom. And I hope
(11:11):
America will let you live your life now. But if
they are fascinated by this, you've heard everybody else's documentary,
everybody else's book, why not hear straight from Amanda Knox
herself Free My search for Meeting, terrific job on this
and God bless you and everything you do moving forward.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Thank you so much. It was great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Great talking to you, Amanda. Take care. So I was
not one who really followed this. I mean I've seen
a documentary. My wife followed this emphatically. I just found
her to be remarkably candid and transparent. I think there's
a lot of lessons, you know. I think of Monica Lewinsky,
(11:50):
who has struggled to ever have a life after you know,
some bad choices in her early twenties, but that's sirt
for meaning and for purpose and identity. By the way,
she often makes references to her boyfriend in Italy, they're
not still dating, that's just what he's trapped in time.
(12:10):
As she has since gone on to be married, She's
had a daughter, she's had a son, She's found a
lot of purpose, a lot of meaning. And I know
a lot of you have a lot of firm opinions
about that. But and for those of you that really
followed it closely, Free My Search for Meaning is a
must read.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Miss a little, miss a lot, miss a lot, and
will miss you. It's your Morning Show with Michael del
Churno
Previously on your Morning show with Michael del Jono.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You know, these cases come up and I don't know
why we pick the ones we do and we don't
and then they go on to be followed by everybody,
talked about by everybody, documentaries made, books written. But Amanda
Knox was certainly one of those, and it's time she
finally tells her own story Free My Search for Meeting,
Good morning, Amanda Knox for dal Jordan though twenty years old,
(00:29):
that's my daughter's age, and they're twins and they're both
in college. So all this happened to you at my
daughter's age. That makes us feel very personal there abroad. No, well,
that's part of one's plan. I'm thinking. I'm thinking about
that myself. But how this You know there's been books written, documentaries, movies.
(00:50):
How important is it for you to finally have your
say in this book? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
God, tremendously so. And you know, I in a way
that I had my quote say back when I were
my first memoir waiting to be heard, But that was
really about just trying to set the record straight about
this horrible trial and crime. This story Free My Search
for Meaning is what happens on the other side of
that curtain. When you've like over, you're on the other
(01:16):
side of the immediate danger, the immediate existential crisis of
the trauma, and you're now trying to like piece your
life back together and ask yourself, Oh my god, now
that I've been through this experience, who am I? Where
do I belong? How do I Is this just going
to be baggage that I'm caring around for the rest
of my life or is this some way going to
drive some momentum in my life? And you know, it's
(01:38):
a story of a lot of crazy, horrible misadventures that
are very embarrassing, but ultimately I hope people feel really
seen in them. And this oddly triumphant encounter with my
prosecutor that I was set out in without really knowing
what was going to happen and then being very by
(02:00):
the outcome, you.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Kind of touched on the two biggest you know, doing
this interview, I'm thinking, for all the people that have
followed your story that probably are screaming questions at the radio,
how do I ask all of them for them? And
then how do I have my moment My moment with
you is? You know, I'm thinking when I was twenty.
The dumb things I did between I did most of
my dumb things between twenty and thirty, none that had
(02:21):
the misfortune that you did. How do you keep this
from defining your entire life, because it'd be so easy
for that to happen. I mean, when do you get
to move on and live the rest of your life?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, I think that's the trick with trauma, right, You
kind of don't get to just move on, right, Like
you are carrying the experiences that you have in your
most stupid and vulnerable time of your life with you.
But the thing that you like, the moving on part
of it, for me is less about pretending that it
(02:53):
didn't happen and more trying trying to be not just debilitated,
but actually up lifted and empowered by the things that
I've learned from the experience. So I think for me,
I have learned to appreciate what I've been through as
a kind of credentials. In the same way that some
(03:13):
people go to university to get a PhD in biology,
I went to the School of Hard Knocks and got
a PhD and like survival exactly, and I and like
I can look at that now and say this doesn't
define me, but it absolutely is a part of who
I am in the same way to Italy is a
part of who I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Sure. The book is called Free My Search for Meeting
by Amanda Knox, and she's joining us this morning. One
of the things that really struck me is, you know,
we use words like blessings and we think it's money,
good fortune. There is probably some things because of what
you went through that you get kind of like when
somebody's blind has heightened other senses. There's probably some things
(03:55):
from all this bad that is a good you have
that we should be jealous of in a way. How
it affected you powerfully in a positive way?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Oh? One great question, right, Yeah, No, it's you're right, like,
there are so many ways that I feel incredibly lucky.
I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world,
just that I'm alive right now. First of all, because
if I hadn't met my boyfriend five days before this
crime occurred, I would have been raped and murdered too.
So there's that for one thing. But also just the
fact that I spent four years in prison instead of fourteen,
(04:26):
twenty thirty forty like other friends that I've met through
the innocence community. It really puts things into perspective. And
I think one of the things that being stripped down
down to basically nothing but my own mind put me
in contact with is the fact that I am enough,
Like whatever the vicissitudes of life are going to throw
at me, I know that I can be enough for
(04:49):
myself to make life worth living. And then what it
means is that all these blessings that I have in
my life, my family, my children, my career, my voice,
these are all ferries on top of what is ultimately
all that I need. And I'm very, very present with
those things that I know are so fragile and vulnerable
(05:10):
and impermanent.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
You may have lost four years, but some people throw
away their entire life not seeing things the way they
should be seeing, being purposed and living in the moment.
I was interested in that. I think the one thing
I can't get my arms around, how on earth do
you get this friendship with the very prosecutor? I mean,
And that gets told in this book like it's never
been told. I think in any of the other documentaries
(05:35):
or books that have been written. That is a strange,
strange friendship.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, yeah, And when I told my friends in the
innocent community that I wanted to reach out to my
prosecutor and see if I could have a non adversarial
conversation with him, they all thought I was crazy. They thought, like,
that's not going to happen. Prosecutors will not ever see
you as a human being. He's never going to admit
that he was wrong and that I had Stockholm syndrome
(06:01):
or something. But like the way that I approached it was,
this person has only ever seen me in the context
of a murder trial, and he is like refusing to
see my humanity be in a way just because of
the nature of that space. And I wanted to see
(06:22):
if I could find some kind of common ground with him,
for him to be like to position us in a
way to recognize each other's humanity. I did not set
out to become his friend, But what I discovered over
the course of time that getting to know each other
and especially him, like he felt very seen by me
in a way that he was not expecting, Like I
(06:44):
have just been incredibly non judgmental towards him, and he
has been very appreciative of that fact and almost looking
to me for a kind of absolution that I am
willing to give him, just like over like, I'm willing
to acknowledge that he is not defined by the worst
thing he's ever right, And I think that he's just
(07:08):
astonished by that fact, and so is very, very like
he cares about me as a human being, and in
his fragility and in perfectness, I care about him.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's an extraordinary story. It's all a part of Free
My Search for Meeting by Amanda Knox, finally telling her
own story. In this book, she'll walk you through a
lot of untold stories, her return to Italy, her extraordinary
relationships that she's developed, and then kind of just re
establish re establishing yourself at home. Has America been mostly excepted?
(07:42):
I can't imagine what it would be like to have
who knows how many millions have studied your life and
your story, and then they have firm opinions like they
lived it, like you did, like they've you know, and
and to think that everybody's talking about you or making
decisions about you, that's got to be so unsettling and
robbing you of the ability to live. That makes telling
(08:05):
this story so important.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, I have to say that, you know, yes, people
in America have been much more accepting of me, And
so when I look at someone like my boyfriend and
co defendant Raphaele Solecchico, who has remained in Italy and
is an Italian person, he's had a much harder time
re establishing a sense of place in his community because
(08:28):
of the stigma and the ostracized ostracization. But even just
like being known for the worst experience of my life
has put me in a position of feeling like I
don't really know where I belong and I felt very lost,
and even those people who believed in me, like, I
don't know it just it felt like I didn't really
(08:48):
have a place and no one really understood exactly what
I had been through. And I was really worried for
a long time that I was just going to feel
so so alone. And it has only been through putting
myself out there and connecting with people and realizing the
sort of universal truths about our lives and our shared
traumas that I've experienced in other people of experienced as well,
(09:12):
that I'm now addicted to, like connecting with people and
building bridges where you wouldn't otherwise think they would be,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It's interesting people that claw their way out of homelessness,
or claw their way through addiction, or have some kind
of tragedy come to them, it's usually what purposes the
rest of their life. They're in a unique position to
make a difference for others. How much is that purpose
in helping others who have been falsely accused or falsely imprisoned?
Kind of giving you away seems like it's stuck in
(09:40):
the same topic, but it's not, and it's moving on
and making a difference in a way that you may
have been uniquely crafted to make such a difference.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, I agree. This is my credentials. This is how
I went to the school of hard knocks, and I
now know how the sausage gets made. And so the
next person who comes along can come to me and say,
I'm just got out of prison, Oh my god, what
do I do? How do I feel like I can
(10:10):
have a say in my story? Or how do I
get a job? Like? All of these just human problems
that a person who has been wrongly convicted, or like
you said, anyone who's been through a traumatic experience. Those
are all questions that I, as someone who's lived through it,
can help with. I'm also on the board of the
Innocent Center, which is an innocence project that is, you know,
(10:32):
works to help free people who are innocent in prison
and the idea of being able to pay it forward
that way and try to change laws to prevent wrongful
convictions from happening in the first place. Like, it's all very,
very fulfilling, and I'm glad that I can actually put
my experience to good use.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I've had a couple of dear friends, loser children, and
the honest truth when you're talking to them is they're
never going to be the same, They're never going to
be better. That's something they're going to carry the rest
of their life, the trauma you went through. All I
can hope is that you are as free as you sound,
and that's to be applauded, and that you'll continue to
find greater and greater purpose in freedom. And I hope
(11:11):
America will let you live your life now. But if
they are fascinated by this, you've heard everybody else's documentary,
everybody else's book, why not hear straight from Amanda Knox
herself Free My search for Meeting, terrific job on this
and God bless you and everything you do moving forward.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Thank you so much. It was great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Great talking to you, Amanda. Take care. So I was
not one who really followed this. I mean I've seen
a documentary. My wife followed this emphatically. I just found
her to be remarkably candid and transparent. I think there's
a lot of lessons, you know. I think of Monica Lewinsky,
(11:50):
who has struggled to ever have a life after you know,
some bad choices in her early twenties, but that's sirt
for meaning and for purpose and identity. By the way,
she often makes references to her boyfriend in Italy, they're
not still dating, that's just what he's trapped in time.
(12:10):
As she has since gone on to be married, She's
had a daughter, she's had a son, She's found a
lot of purpose, a lot of meaning. And I know
a lot of you have a lot of firm opinions
about that. But and for those of you that really
followed it closely, Free My Search for Meaning is a
must read.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Miss a little, miss a lot, miss a lot, and
will miss you. It's your Morning Show with Michael del
Churno
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