Turning her wrongful conviction into comedy

Amanda Knox – the woman who was wrongly accused of killing her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy – has become a stand-up.

The 38-year old started performing comedy last summer, with much of her material based on her legal ordeal and public reputation.

She was convicted of the 2007 murder of Kercher  in Perugia in 2009 and sentenced to 26 years in prison. In 2011, the conviction was overturned and Knox was released, whereupon she returned to America.

Two years after that, the acquittal was overturned and a retrial ordered, with an appeals court  convicting her of murder for a second time. But in 2015, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation definitively acquitted Knox of Kercher's murder.

Last year, she opened for Nikki Glaser in Seattle, after the more famous comedian spotted footage of her sixth ever gig on Instagram.

At that gig, Knox told the  3,000-strong crowd: ‘Here’s how I look at it. If I bomb – god forbid – on a comedy set, what’s the worst you can do to me? I’ve bombed in a courtroom and they sent me to prison. I’m just saying I’d rather be heckled than shackled.’

She also joked that despite being exonerated people still debated whether she was guilty or innocent, suggesting that made her ‘the human equivalent of that white/gold, blue/black dress’ controversy that lit up the internet.

Knox – who also has a podcast called Hard Knox – has continued to persue her stand-up career, including a gig this week at the Ice House comedy club in Pasadena, California. However her efforts have remained largely under the radar until today, when her new career was reported by The Sun.

She has said:  ‘I think that finding the ability to laugh at the bad things that have happened to you and find the absurdity in the human condition [is important]. I really love how comedy allows me to feel connected to other people.’

Knox’s  Italian boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, was also wrongly convicted of  Kercher’s murder and later acquitted.  Rudy Guede, who had a record of burglaries, was found to be guilty of the killing.

Knox is now married with two children, who also feature in her stand-up routines. 

She is  pictured above opening for Glasier  last year and at an OFTV roast in 2023 (OnlyFans, cc-by 3.0)

Published: 27 Mar 2026