Amanda Knox criticizes Hollywood’s treatment of true crime stories

Amanda Knox speaks on behalf of Fili Fualaau, a former student of the late Mary Kay Letourneau and her estranged husband, who was offended when his May scandal was depicted without his involvement.

“It’s entitlement that really gives me the feeling that someone else’s life, their mistakes, their trauma, their story, are just free things to take because they were in the news. Knox wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Knox, the former American exchange student who became the focus of a sensational Italian murder case, has long been vocal about the ethics of using true crime stories as source material in entertainment. Her story was depicted, without her consent, in the 2021 film “Stillwater,” directed by Tom McCarthy and starring Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin.

Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were first arrested in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 after Meredith Kercher, Knox’s 21-year-old British roommate, was found murdered, nearly naked in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds. She was also sexually assaulted. Knox and Sollecito were sentenced in 2009 to 26 years and 25 years in prison respectively, but were released after serving four years in prison when the sentence was overturned on appeal in 2011. Knox returned to the United States before a new trial was ordered, then returned in 2014 to Italy, where the two were convicted again. This time Knox got 28.

But in 2015, Italian Supreme Court judges overturned the second conviction and definitively acquitted both Knox and Sollecito of murder. Another man, Rudy Guede, was eventually convicted.

Knox wrote a think piece for The Atlantic in 2021, after “Stillwater” hit theaters, criticizing McCarthy and Damon for making a film without her consent or knowledge. She criticized the duo for using her story and name to promote the film, and said they portrayed the film’s “Amanda-like” character as guilty. According to Knox, neither McCarthy nor Damon accepted her offer to discuss these “morally complex” issues.

“We can all learn something by asking the tough questions about real-life events that we have the right to turn into content,” she continued on Friday in a social media thread. “By asking who has the most interest in telling the story. By asking what the costs are and who will bear them. As storytellers, we may be legally entitled to turn other people’s lives into content without their consent, whether in a podcast or a movie, but ethically… “

“These questions often arise with crime stories, which receive legal clearance because they are deemed ‘newsworthy’.”

Knox admitted that she had not seen “May” yet, and that she would refrain from judging its merits as a film. “I also offer no opinions about Mary Kay Letourneau or Fili Fualaau. However, your judgment of them morally is beside the point.”

“When someone is convicted of a crime, our criminal legal system imposes a penalty,” she wrote. “This penalty does not include giving up life rights in the Hollywood ecosystem. It may include a ban on (profiting from) that story.”

Knox also claimed that even criminals, in her opinion, should be entitled to consultation about how they are represented on a CV. “And don’t forget that in stories like this, even if one person is guilty of a crime, there are many other people who end up in the story who may not have done anything wrong, but whose lives were affected by the events. Shouldn’t they have a say in how they are portrayed?” In the movie?