‘I no longer feel like I’m just a pawn’: Amanda Knox reflects on her journey to freedom

Amanda Knox has lived through one of the most talked about controversies in recent memory. She was accused of murder in Italy and was finally cleared years later.

Knox joined “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio Friday to share more about her recent memoir, “Free: My Search for Meaning” — where Knox opens up about her life beyond the courtroom, finding herself, and figuring out what she believes really matters.

“I was hoping that the world was just going to realize that I was an innocent person, and everyone would sort of say sorry and let me go on with my life as an anonymous person, that was not going to happen,” Knox said. “And so instead of feeling trapped by the stigma of being the girl accused of murder for the rest of my life, I decided that I was going to accept my reality for what it was, I want to see it clearly, and as a result of that, be an effective agent in my own life, so I no longer feel like I’m just a pawn in someone else’s game.

“I’m no longer just reacting to the external world and what it’s imposing on me,” she continued. “I can just sit with myself and be at peace with my reality, and then make decisions that speak to who I am and stand up for what I really believe in.”

Listen to the full interview below:

Amanda Knox discovers she is stronger than man who prosecuted her

In part of the book, Knox talks about making peace with the man who prosecuted her. However, it wasn’t an easy journey.

“I didn’t set out to make peace with him,” she shared. “I originally set out to try to understand him and see if he could understand me outside of this adversarial system that we had found ourselves in, that we had discovered ourselves in.”

Knox said the process started with her trying to find some common ground with him and recognizing that he also felt misrepresented by the media. She said the discussion turned into a conversation about who he was, adding that she didn’t have set expectations but instead wanted the man to reveal himself, whether consciously or unconsciously.

“Ultimately, what he revealed to me was that he was not the scary, evil boogeyman in my life,” she said. “He was a fragile, egotistical, but also deeply caring, man who ultimately was looking to me for a kind of absolution.”

Knox was surprised by her conversation with the prosecutor.

“I was shocked by that reality and realizing that of the two of us, I was actually the stronger one, which I had not realized and so now we have this ongoing relationship where it’s not easy, it’s certainly a constant, like a frustrating chess game of a conversation,” she said. “But ultimately, it comes down to him just feeling really deeply seen by me and appreciative of that.”

When asked what it was like to finally return home to Seattle, Knox responded: “As soon as I learned the stance that everybody in Seattle took, I felt like you guys had recognized my humanity. And so I can’t say how much I appreciate that fact, that I just did not have to feel paranoid about my local community in the same way that I had to feel about outsiders coming in. So it’s not that I was perfectly safe in Seattle, but it did make me feel like I belonged to the community again in a way that I wasn’t sure of.”

Listen to “Seattle’s Morning News” with Charlie Harger weekday mornings from 5-9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio. Subscribe to the podcast here.