05 June 2024 , 15:52
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Amanda Knox is still trying to clear her name after being exonerated for the brutal murder of exchange student Meredith Kercher, but she's lived a wild life since walking free.
Seattle-born Amanda shared an apartment with 21-year-old Meredith in the Italian university town of Perugia. Amanda was found guilty of Meredith's murder, alongside her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, however, their convictions were overturned on appeal in October 2011. Rudy Guede was later convicted and jailed for Meredith's murder.
Today, Amanda's hopes of 'clearing her name once and for all' have been crushed after a jury in Florence found the now 36-year-old had slandered bar owner Patrick Lumumba, as she wrongly accused the innocent man of the crime.
Here, the Mirror looks at Amanda's bizarre life now, from her friendships with fellow 'shamed women' to a wedding fundraiser that sparked fury...
Friendship with Lorena Bobbitt
Amanda has found a kinship with Lorena Bobbitt (Instagram)While attending a true crime festival in 2019, Amanda was seen hanging out with Lorena Bobbitt, a Virginia woman who admitted to slicing off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife. After committing the act, she then drove off, chucking the severed appendage out of the car window into a field before alerting authorities where they could find it.
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Lorena, who claimed her husband had abused her for years, was acquitted of maliciously wounding John Wayne Bobbitt during her 1994 trial on account of temporary insanity brought on by trauma. She was discharged one month after being sent to a mental health institution, and nowadays advocates for victims of domestic violence through her organisation the Lorena Gallo Foundation.
John's penis was successfully reattached following a gruelling nine-hour surgical procedure. In the 2018 documentary The Bobbitts: Love Hurts, the former marine, who denied abusing Lorena, confirmed his genitals were 'back to normal'. He added: "I don't wanna mess with it, it's been through the wringer."
Lorena appeared as a headliner at the Death Becomes Us festival, where both she and Amanda spoke about their respective cases. Sharing a selfie of them smiling together via Instagram, Amanda declared that it was 'an honour to have shared this stage with another longtime member of the shamed women club'. She remarked how good it felt to be 'reclaiming our narratives together'.
The pair first bonded after Amanda invited Lorena to appear on her podcast, The Truth About True Crime, with the two women finding plenty of common ground. In an interview with Good Morning America, Lorena explained: "She's been there - in the darkest moment of her life, through trials - and me, the same. So we feel that connection. We've both been not only judged when we went to trials, but we've also been judged by society, by the media."
Rewearing old prison uniform
Amanda 'lived in' the baggy sweatpants during her four years behind bars (Instagram)In January 2020, in the run-up to her wedding day, Amanda shared a snap of herself clad in grey tracksuit bottoms, blue sweater and a beanie - ie her old prison uniform. Amanda, who was incarcerated for four years from 2009, told followers: "40 days left until the wedding and 267 tasks left on the wedding To Do list. I've locked myself in the craftroom and I'm wearing my old prison uniform."
She continued: "Literally the very same sweatshirt and sweatpants I lived in in Casa Circondariale Capanne, Perugia."
Space-themed wedding
Bride Amanda wore face jewels for her out of this world wedding (Splash News / BACKGRID)
She and husband Christopher had to deal with a backlash in the run-up to their big day (Getty Images for Hilarity for Charity)In 2020, Amanda and her now-husband Christopher Robinson tied the knot for the second time in a surreal space-themed wedding at Elks Lodge in Burien, Washington, complete with a 'time machine' and 'crazy centrepieces that will warp your concept of time'.
Shunning a traditional bridal gown, Amanda opted for loose yellow pants and a gold waistcoat, completing her look with sparkling face jewels and Princess Leia-style hair buns. Matching her eye-catching look, Amanda's poet groom Christopher, who had proposed with a piece of meteor, arrived clad in gold shoes and a jaunty yellow bow tie.
Keeping with the quirky theme of the Leap Day ceremony, guests rocked up wearing space-themed costumes, while others arrived clad in Renaissance, medieval and toga-style outfits.
The happy couple, who had already tied the knot secretly back in December 2018, sparked some controversy at the time after sharing a crowdfunding wedding registry site for their (second) big day, set up in lieu of a traditional wedding registry. They explained: "Let's face it, we don't need any more stuff. So please, no gifts, and no pressure. But if you feel so inclined, we welcome help putting on the best party ever for our family and friends!"
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Depending on how much they wished to give, donors - who could have given as much as £8,000 should they have wished to - could contribute towards 'extravagant alien food', special effects and costumes, with supporters receiving a copy of their joint volume of love poetry, The Cardio Tesseract, as thanks.
Addressing some of the criticism they received due to the crowdfunding page, Amanda took to social media platform X - formerly known as Twitter - writing: "To those hating on us all day, you've been duped by the outrage machine. You gave ad $ to tabloids that profit by making you angry about things that don't matter. Our wedding will be crazy & fun & barebones if it needs to be, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter."
Cheeky pregnancy announcement
Mum-of-two Amanda announced she was expecting with a 'pregspreading' post (Instagram/@amamaknox)In August 2023, Amanda announced she was pregnant with baby number two, with a humorous Instagram pic showing her 'pregspreading' on a bench - a play on the more commonly used term 'manspreading'. The snap, which tags the Oxford English Dictionary. shows the expectant mum sitting with her feet spread far apart, beer bottle in hand and pregnancy bump on display beneath a green patterned jumpsuit.
In a November 29 episode of her parenting podcast Younglings, Amanda revealed that she had welcomed son Echo on September 23, describing him as 'perfect'. Opening up about the unusual name choice, Amanda shared: "When we were thinking of a name for baby number two, we wanted to keep going. We thought we had a really good method we thought Eureka was an awesome name.
"We started thinking of what are other exclamations that could potentially be names... So when we're thinking of like a name for a boy, Echo comes to mind in two ways, because 'ecco' in Italian means like 'behold' ... and you say echo to say 'echo, echo, echo."
Little Echo is the younger sibling of Amanda's daughter Eureka Muse, whose arrival she announced in October 2021, months after giving birth. Speaking candidly with The New York Times, Amanda explained that she'd kept Eureka a secret out of fear of 'the paparazzi bounty on her head'. Expressing relief following her announcement, she remarked: "I will say I'm excited to not have to keep pretending not to be a mom. 'Cause it's like, my brain is just there."