Amanda Knox Slams 'Stillwater', Says Matt Damon's New Film Is Profiting Off 'My Name, Face, & Story Without My Consent'
One person who will not be checking out Stillwater is Amanda Knox, who claimed the film is profiting from her wrongful murder conviction.
The 34-year-old took to Twitter on Thursday, July 29, and lamented how her name is still being dragged into the 2007 murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.
"Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent," Knox began. "Most recently, the film #STILLWATER."
Knox explained that she read Vanity Fair's interview with Stillwater director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, noting the film is said to be "'loosely based' or 'directly inspired by' the 'Amanda Knox saga.'"
"What does that refer to?" she said of the phrase the "Amanda Knox saga." "Does it refer to anything I did? No. It refers to the events that resulted from the murder of Meredith Kercher by a burglar named Rudy Guede."
Knox said that the phrase "refers to the shoddy police work, prosecutorial tunnel vision, and refusal to admit their mistakes that led the Italian authorities to wrongfully convict me, twice," and that everyone else involved "had more influence over events than I did." She added that "the erroneous focus on me by the authorities led to an erroneous focus on me by the press, which shaped how I was viewed. In prison, I had no control over my public image, no voice in my story."
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"This focus on me led many to complain that Meredith had been forgotten. But of course, who did they blame for that? Not the Italian authorities. Not the press. Me!" Knox said, adding that both Kercher and Guede's names are often left out of headlines.
"It matters what you call a thing," Knox said, using the affair former President Bill Clinton reportedly had with Monica Lewinsky as an example. "Calling that event the 'Lewinsky Scandal' fails to acknowledge the vast power differential, & I’m glad that more people are now referring to it as 'the Clinton Affair' which names it after the person with the most agency in that series of events."
The Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir author said that she would love for Kercher's case to become known as "The murder of Meredith Kercher by Rudy Guede" because it would "place me as the peripheral figure I should have been, the innocent roommate." However, she admitted that she understands that her "wrongful conviction, and subsequent trials, became the story that people obsessed over" and that it will continue to be referred to as the "Amanda Knox saga."
Knox asked that people do not blame her for how the focus was put on her and that people understand that how they speak about the events impacts the people involved.
"And if you must refer to the 'Amanda Knox saga,' maybe don’t call it, as the @nytimes [New York Times] did in profiling Matt Damon, 'the sordid Amanda Knox saga.' Sordid: morally vile. Not a great adjective to have placed next to your name," she noted. "Repeat something often enough, and people believe it."
Knox also said that Stillwater is not the only project "to rip off my story without my consent at the expense of my reputation," but said that if the filmmakers said they are going to "'leave the Amanda Knox case behind,' and 'fictionalize everything around it,' maybe don’t use my name to promote it."
