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The Province
4 days ago
- The Province
Amanda Knox set to appear at Vancouver library event: 'How do I truly feel free?'
Once dubbed Foxy Knoxy by the tabloid press Amanda Knox was wrongly convicted of murder. Now she hopes her story of resilience will inspire others Dana Gee Published May 27, 2025 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 6 minute read Wrongly convicted of murder, Amanda Knox spent four years in an Italian prison. Now, 18 years later, Knox hopes her new memoir Free: My Search for Meaning will help others find a path forward through diffiuclt times. Courtesy of Gand Central Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn't commit. In the process, she became an infamous tabloid story. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors In 2007, in Perugia, Italy, the then-20-year-old Knox and her Italian, boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested for the murder of Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher. Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime, and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015. Now, 18 years later, Knox — who the tabloids dubbed 'Foxy Knoxy' — is returning to the story with a new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning. But instead of just re-litigating what happened to her, she turned her nightmare into a story of healing and hope for others searching for a path out of dark times. Knox will be in conversation with Vancouver journalist Sarah Berman at Vancouver Public Library's main branch on June 2, at 7 p.m. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. This picture taken on Oct. 3, 2011, shows Amanda Knox leaving the court after an Italian appeals court overturned her murder conviction. Knox, an American student, had been accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007. Photo by TIZIANA FABI / AFP/Getty Images Knox, who also wrote the memoir Waiting to be Heard after being released from prison at age 25, decided to return to her story all these years later as she realized people were still interested. 'I very specifically have tried to keep my personal life very private for years. And I couldn't,' said Knox, 37, who is a mother to two young kids and lives on Vashon Island in Washington state. A big sign of continued interest came when paparazzi and media descended on her 2020 wedding. 'I tried to keep it really, really locked down,' said Knox recently from her home. 'I made sure that no one who was attending said anything to anyone. I was really strict about it, and even so, paparazzi showed up outside and started taking pictures of me and my various guests and writing articles. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'My personal life remains in the public eye, even when it shouldn't be. And I'm instead sort of accepting that as part of my reality, and then asking myself, 'OK, what good can come from that?'' said Knox, who upon her release from prison cut her hair off, donned large glasses and worked in a basement bookstore. The result of that reflection is Free, a mixture of memoir and self-help. Free: My Search for Meaning by Amanda Knox. Photo by Courtesy of Gand Central / Courtesy of Gand Central 'What I came up with, is someone who is open and communicative and attempting to articulate really difficult things so that other people can see themselves in my experience, and I can see myself in their experience,' said Knox. 'Part of it is also me trying to feel like I belong to humanity again.' It should be noted that, almost two decades after her original arrest, Knox's legal drama is not over. She is still trying to get the slander conviction she received after she was coerced during her interrogation into naming Patrick Lumumba, a pub owner she worked for in Italy, overturned. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Even though I had been denied the assistance of an interpreter or an attorney, I was blamed for the outcome of the interrogation and sentenced to three years' time served,' Knox writes in Free. In 2019, the European Court of Human rights vindicated Knox and said her rights were violated during her first arrest, and she was then able to successfully sue Italy and had her slander conviction overturned. But in 2024, she was back in Italy in court and stunned to hear the appeals court had decided to uphold her original slander conviction. 'I was re-convicted, and now I just got, very recently, the motivation document, which explains the verdict, and I'm literally making plans to speak with my attorneys about what our options are,' said Knox, noting her goal is to wipe her record clean, once and for all. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Knox says her experience with courts of law and the continuing court of public opinion — Knox still receives hateful messages from the public — have, at the end of the day, offered her valuable insight into who she really is. 'You just learn to have control over the little that you have control over. And you have to accept what you cannot,' said Knox. 'I would have driven myself crazy if I spent the entire time that I was in prison banging my head against a wall that I could not get through. So, I instead focused on what I could do.' Calling the book Free obviously conjures the idea of her exoneration, but for Knox, the title leans more toward the journey away from the 'girl who was accused of murder' to the woman she is today. 'I've had to challenge what people thought my life should be limited to,' said Knox. 'I've always balked at limitations and these little boxes that people are trying to constantly shove me in. And you know, that goes back to this idea of freedom, which is why I named the book Free — how do I be free when the world really wants me to be limited and diminished and boxed in? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'How do I truly feel free? Part of that is accepting my life for what it is, seeing my life really clearly, and seeing other people really clearly. And then asking myself again, what is it? What is the good that I can do … that is the thing that ultimately defines me.' In the book, Knox talks a lot about her mistakes and how failing, in the end, propelled her forward. She describes meeting other falsely accused people and gives due to one of the 20th-century's most unjustly maligned women. 'Meeting Monica Lewinsky was a huge moment where it really, like, cracked open some things for me,' said Knox. 'I saw a woman who had every reason to feel like her entire life was over because the whole world had just written her off as a human being and blamed her for other people's infidelities. But she had forged a path forward and reclaimed her life. And I was like, oh my God, there's an actual model for how it can be done.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Finding a way forward led Knox to reach out to the prosecutor that put her behind bars in Italy all those years ago. 'That's a huge story in the book,' said Knox. 'I think anyone who's been victimized in the past can relate to this experience of wanting to know that the person who hurt them cares, and they recognize that it was wrong … That's one of the big things that someone who has experienced grief or trauma wants, is just an acknowledgment that what you're experiencing, that the pain you're experiencing, is real. 'I was really, really surprised at the results. And once I came out on the other side of that experience, I thought, oh my god, I really have a story to tell now, because I've actually done something that defines me, I think, more than this horrible thing that happened to me.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. At the end of the day, Knox realizes her infamy is what may draw people to her new book. But once their curiosity is sated, she hopes the reader will find the book's much bigger takeaway useful. 'My hope is that people will read my book out of curiosity, and then once they get to the end of it, they'll be like, 'Oh my God, I need to get this book to my friend Sarah, who's going through a breakup, or my Uncle Rob, who's dealing with cancer,' or whatever,' said Knox, who has hosted the podcast Labyrinth since 2020. 'Who really needs to hear this story is this person who's going through a hard thing. And then I can, through my book, be there as like a companion to someone who is going through a difficult thing. That's what I hope.' Dgee@ Read More Vancouver Canucks Vancouver Canucks Local News Vancouver Canucks Crime
Calgary Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Amanda Knox set to appear at Vancouver library event: 'How do I truly feel free?'
Article content Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn't commit. In the process, she became an infamous tabloid story. Article content In 2007, in Perugia, Italy, the then-20-year-old Knox and her Italian, boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested for the murder of Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher. Article content Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime, and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015. Article content Article content Now, 18 years later, Knox — who the tabloids dubbed 'Foxy Knoxy' — is returning to the story with a new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning. But instead of just re-litigating what happened to her, she turned her nightmare into a story of healing and hope for others searching for a path out of dark times. Article content Article content Knox, who also wrote the memoir Waiting to be Heard after being released from prison at age 25, decided to return to her story all these years later as she realized people were still interested. Article content 'I very specifically have tried to keep my personal life very private for years. And I couldn't,' said Knox, 37, who is a mother to two young kids and lives on Vashon Island in Washington state. Article content A big sign of continued interest came when paparazzi and media descended on her 2020 wedding. Article content Article content 'I tried to keep it really, really locked down,' said Knox recently from her home. 'I made sure that no one who was attending said anything to anyone. I was really strict about it, and even so, paparazzi showed up outside and started taking pictures of me and my various guests and writing articles. Article content 'My personal life remains in the public eye, even when it shouldn't be. And I'm instead sort of accepting that as part of my reality, and then asking myself, 'OK, what good can come from that?'' said Knox, who upon her release from prison cut her hair off, donned large glasses and worked in a basement bookstore. Article content Article content 'What I came up with, is someone who is open and communicative and attempting to articulate really difficult things so that other people can see themselves in my experience, and I can see myself in their experience,' said Knox. 'Part of it is also me trying to feel like I belong to humanity again.'
Vancouver Sun
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vancouver Sun
Amanda Knox set to appear at Vancouver library event: 'How do I truly feel free?'
Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn't commit. In the process, she became an infamous tabloid story. In 2007, in Perugia, Italy, the then-20-year-old Knox and her Italian, boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested for the murder of Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher. Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime, and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015. Now, 18 years later, Knox — who the tabloids dubbed 'Foxy Knoxy' — is returning to the story with a new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning. But instead of just re-litigating what happened to her, she turned her nightmare into a story of healing and hope for others searching for a path out of dark times. Get top headlines and gossip from the world of celebrity and entertainment. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sun Spots will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Knox will be in conversation with Vancouver journalist Sarah Berman at Vancouver Public Library's main branch on June 2, at 7 p.m. Knox, who also wrote the memoir Waiting to be Heard after being released from prison at age 25, decided to return to her story all these years later as she realized people were still interested. 'I very specifically have tried to keep my personal life very private for years. And I couldn't,' said Knox, 37, who is a mother to two young kids and lives on Vashon Island in Washington state. A big sign of continued interest came when paparazzi and media descended on her 2020 wedding. 'I tried to keep it really, really locked down,' said Knox recently from her home. 'I made sure that no one who was attending said anything to anyone. I was really strict about it, and even so, paparazzi showed up outside and started taking pictures of me and my various guests and writing articles. 'My personal life remains in the public eye, even when it shouldn't be. And I'm instead sort of accepting that as part of my reality, and then asking myself, 'OK, what good can come from that?'' said Knox, who upon her release from prison cut her hair off, donned large glasses and worked in a basement bookstore. The result of that reflection is Free, a mixture of memoir and self-help. 'What I came up with, is someone who is open and communicative and attempting to articulate really difficult things so that other people can see themselves in my experience, and I can see myself in their experience,' said Knox. 'Part of it is also me trying to feel like I belong to humanity again.' It should be noted that, almost two decades after her original arrest, Knox's legal drama is not over. She is still trying to get the slander conviction she received after she was coerced during her interrogation into naming Patrick Lumumba, a pub owner she worked for in Italy, overturned. 'Even though I had been denied the assistance of an interpreter or an attorney, I was blamed for the outcome of the interrogation and sentenced to three years' time served,' Knox writes in Free. In 2019, the European Court of Human rights vindicated Knox and said her rights were violated during her first arrest, and she was then able to successfully sue Italy and had her slander conviction overturned. But in 2024, she was back in Italy in court and stunned to hear the appeals court had decided to uphold her original slander conviction. 'I was re-convicted, and now I just got, very recently, the motivation document, which explains the verdict, and I'm literally making plans to speak with my attorneys about what our options are,' said Knox, noting her goal is to wipe her record clean, once and for all. Knox says her experience with courts of law and the continuing court of public opinion — Knox still receives hateful messages from the public — have, at the end of the day, offered her valuable insight into who she really is. 'You just learn to have control over the little that you have control over. And you have to accept what you cannot,' said Knox. 'I would have driven myself crazy if I spent the entire time that I was in prison banging my head against a wall that I could not get through. So, I instead focused on what I could do.' Calling the book Free obviously conjures the idea of her exoneration, but for Knox, the title leans more toward the journey away from the 'girl who was accused of murder' to the woman she is today. 'I've had to challenge what people thought my life should be limited to,' said Knox. 'I've always balked at limitations and these little boxes that people are trying to constantly shove me in. And you know, that goes back to this idea of freedom, which is why I named the book Free — how do I be free when the world really wants me to be limited and diminished and boxed in? 'How do I truly feel free? Part of that is accepting my life for what it is, seeing my life really clearly, and seeing other people really clearly. And then asking myself again, what is it? What is the good that I can do … that is the thing that ultimately defines me.' In the book, Knox talks a lot about her mistakes and how failing, in the end, propelled her forward. She describes meeting other falsely accused people and gives due to one of the 20th-century's most unjustly maligned women. 'Meeting Monica Lewinsky was a huge moment where it really, like, cracked open some things for me,' said Knox. 'I saw a woman who had every reason to feel like her entire life was over because the whole world had just written her off as a human being and blamed her for other people's infidelities. But she had forged a path forward and reclaimed her life. And I was like, oh my God, there's an actual model for how it can be done.' Finding a way forward led Knox to reach out to the prosecutor that put her behind bars in Italy all those years ago. 'That's a huge story in the book,' said Knox. 'I think anyone who's been victimized in the past can relate to this experience of wanting to know that the person who hurt them cares, and they recognize that it was wrong … That's one of the big things that someone who has experienced grief or trauma wants, is just an acknowledgment that what you're experiencing, that the pain you're experiencing, is real. 'I was really, really surprised at the results. And once I came out on the other side of that experience, I thought, oh my god, I really have a story to tell now, because I've actually done something that defines me, I think, more than this horrible thing that happened to me.' At the end of the day, Knox realizes her infamy is what may draw people to her new book. But once their curiosity is sated, she hopes the reader will find the book's much bigger takeaway useful. 'My hope is that people will read my book out of curiosity, and then once they get to the end of it, they'll be like, 'Oh my God, I need to get this book to my friend Sarah, who's going through a breakup, or my Uncle Rob, who's dealing with cancer,' or whatever,' said Knox, who has hosted the podcast Labyrinth since 2020. 'Who really needs to hear this story is this person who's going through a hard thing. And then I can, through my book, be there as like a companion to someone who is going through a difficult thing. That's what I hope.' Dgee@
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Comedy Is the Relief Valve': How Sarah Silverman Survived Grief and Backlash
Sarah Silverman has a shy side. No, really. For years, she avoided doing a podcast because she didn't want to ask her friends to be on another comedy show. Then, during the pandemic, Silverman came up with a solution. She made her fans the guests. Now, listeners call in to The Sarah Silverman Podcast and leave voicemails for 'your pal Sarah,' and then the NYU dropout provides counsel. Today, she sits in a West Hollywood studio in jeans, Converse, and a vaguely military-flight-jacket thingy on top. Her jet-black hair is piled up high, and her face is framed by oversize reading glasses. Now 54, she exudes a sexy homewrecker of Shaker Heights vibe. More from Rolling Stone Sarah Silverman on Being 'SNL' Cast Member: 'You Feel Like a Piece of Sh-t' Lorde: 'I'm an Intense Bitch' Inside the Battle for the Soul of the LAPD Her advice to callers can be serious — a month ago, she sympathized with a transgender woman who thought she had to leave the country with Trump back in office — and graphic (Silverman answered a question on menopausal hormone replacement by gleefully detailing how she lets her partner insert hormone suppositories into her vagina). The calls can also be stupid, like when a man who is 49 but says he looks 35 complains that he can't get respect for the road he's traveled. Silverman has no patience with him. 'Well, you sound old, and your questions are boring. Is that something?' Her producer cues up another voicemail. 'Hi, Sarah, Amanda Knox here. Yes, that one. My question has to do specifically with tragedies — or, I guess, comedy around tragedies. I went through a whole tragic experience myself, wrongly convicted, imprisoned, all of that, and one of the ways that I have coped was to make jokes about it.… But when I have made jokes, some people have laughed, and some people have called me a psychopath for daring to make any kind of comedy out of the tragedy I went through. And I guess my question is, 'Is someone like me allowed to be funny?' Thank you.' Silverman pauses to confer with her podcast staff. Is this the Amanda Knox of tabloid fame, wrongly convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy in 2007? They confirm that the voice matches up. They resume taping. 'Yeah, comedy is the relief valve,' says Silverman. 'On one hand, there is a time and a place for it. But on the other hand, the worst and most inappropriate place for it is kind of the place for it, too.' Silverman smiles for a second, possibly remembering her own tragedy-plus-time childhood featuring her father's philandering, her bed-wetting, and a brother who died before she was born. Those experiences had led Silverman to describe her younger self as 'cunty and judgmental,' but she has matured into something more substantial that has her producing the best comedy of her career. She gives Knox permission to do the same. 'You kind of called the devil on your shoulder for advice on it,' says Silverman. 'You've been through a lot, and comedy is kind of like the flower that comes up through the pavement. It emerges in the darkest spaces. It's a crack of light, but also highly subjective, so something that is a relief for one person maybe is triggering for another. You can't please everyone.' Silverman shrugs. 'I hope that helps. I'm going to assume it probably did not.' She is probably wrong. 'Comedy is kind of like the flower that comes up through the pavement.' GETTING OLD SUCKS. You ache in the places where you used to play, as Leonard Cohen said. Your kid's buddy asks him why his 'grandfather' is walking him to school. Also, the people you love die. Sarah Silverman knows this better than most. It's been more than 30 years since she became part of the American cultural landscape with NSFW jokes like, 'I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.' She isn't that girl anymore, although she can still describe her boyfriend giving her a facial that resembles Hitler's mustache. In May 2023, she lost her father and best friend, Donald, and her stepmother, Janice, nine days apart. Her new Netflix stand-up special, PostMortem (premiering May 20), contains some filth but is mainly a valentine to loved ones past. On an overcast afternoon, clad in a baseball cap and hoodie, Silverman gives me a tour of the photos on the wall of her Los Angeles living room as her two rescue dogs, Mary and Sibby, linger nearby. Her mom, Beth, smiles down from a frame, wearing her favorite overalls. Beth died in 2015, but Silverman still has her overalls. There's one of Silverman with her boyfriend, Rory Albanese, a producer for Jimmy Kimmel (himself an ex and longtime friend), and other snapshots featuring various combinations of her three sisters and their children, scattered between L.A., Australia, and Israel. She narrates her personal history in the small voice that has told 1,001 jokes about fucking. 'OK, that's me and Rory. This is my sister Laura and my niece Aliza.' She pauses by a photo of herself wearing a mustache, a Nazi uniform, and a smirk on her face. 'That's me as Hitler backstage on Conan.' She moves on. 'OK, this is my best friend, Tall John, at poker. He's 6'10' and always wears this shirt of mine that he bought on Etsy when we play poker.' There's one man who appears in more photos than others, and that is her father, Donald 'Schleppy' Silverman. In one, Donald wears a Pride shirt and a goofy grin outside of the Airport Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire. Silverman's voice trails off as she looks at her dad. 'He was my best friend, my buddy.' She makes an edit. 'Well, he wasn't my best friend until I was older. He was not physically abusive, but he had uncontrollable rage.' Silverman then turns her frown upside down. 'He shed that. Age, enlightenment, and Zoloft were an excellent combination for him.' SILVERMAN TELLS TWO STORIES about her dad, both of which are true. One is happy. The other features unfathomable darkness and is depicted comically in Silverman's memoir, Bedwetter, and the still-developing Bedwetter: The Musical, with music by the late Adam Schlesinger. The happy tale is told in PostMortem, a joyous remembrance of Schleppy as a wisecracking man who ran Crazy Sophie's Factory Outlet in Concord, New Hampshire, just north of Bedford, where the Silvermans were the only Jewish family. That's the Donald who was madly in love with his second wife, Janice. The Donald who hams it up in sporadic appearances on Sarah's comedy specials and series. The Donald who taught Sarah her first swear words at three. It's the Donald who was charming enough to persuade his ex-wife, Beth, to regularly cut his toenails and was so afraid of pain that he left the cardiogram stickers on his belly until they fell off naturally rather than experience the mild agony of pulling them off his hairy stomach. 'Everyone says their dad is unique, the best,' says Albanese, who started dating Silverman after they became online friends playing Call of Duty during the pandemic. 'But Donald really was unique.' Albanese tells me a story about Donald getting a tattoo with the name of his wife on his right butt cheek when he was 80. True to form, Donald howled at the pain. 'I was telling my parents the story, and Donald was there,' says Albanese. 'And he says, 'You want to see it?' And he stands up and just pulls out his right ass, right in the restaurant. That's Donald.' But Schleppy traveled a long, tortured road before becoming a mensch. Much of it is detailed in Bedwetter. 'My dad had a heartbreaking childhood,' Silverman tells me. 'His dad beat the shit out of him every day, just mercilessly. He had a younger brother who wasn't touched. His father made the kids call him Mr. Silverman.' Donald was sent away to Christian school, where he was beaten up repeatedly, simply for being the sole Jew. His only solace was Jewish summer camp, where he made friends who he stayed in touch with his entire life. After high school, Donald found a kindred spirit in Beth Ann, Sarah's mom, who was also abused as a child. The couple moved to Bedford and started a family that eventually begat four daughters and a son. The union wasn't a happy one. Donald was repeatedly unfaithful and belittled his wife's artistic side. (She was a painter, and in PostMortem, Silverman recounts how her mom would do dramatic readings of movie times for a local cinema.) 'She was more of a free spirit than my dad, who wanted to be a writer but instead took over his father's store,' says Silverman. 'Once they were married and she became a part of him ego-wise, he pounded that out of her and made fun of her. He humiliated her and felt she was lazy because she was in bed a lot. That was before people knew what depression was.' There was more sorrow. Five years before Sarah was born, her mom won a cruise on a game show, and the couple left their infant son, Jeffrey, home with Donald's parents. The baby died when part of his crib collapsed on him. Jeffrey was never spoken of. One day, her grandmother was driving a five-year-old Sarah and her three older sisters to breakfast and told them to buckle up their seat belts. 'Yeah, we don't want to wind up like Jeffrey,' said Sarah. The car went quiet, and her grandmother began to weep. Sarah rarely brought up her brother again. Silverman suffered with bed-wetting until she was 15, stressing about sleepovers and packing diapers for the summers when her dad forced her to go to camp. 'He thought since he had such great memories of it, I'd have the same,' says Silverman. 'But I just dreaded it.' 'My dad had a heartbreaking childhood. His dad beat the shit out of him every day, mercilessly.' Her father eventually took her to a psychiatrist who prescribed her Xanax. Soon, she was taking 16 tablets a day. Impossibly, it got worse. The doctor hanged himself one day while Sarah was waiting for an appointment to begin. Then, Donald and Beth split up. Sarah's sisters went to live with him while she stayed with their mom. 'They had an ugly divorce where my dad spread horrible rumors that she was crazy and I wasn't safe in the house,' remembers Silverman. 'And it wasn't true.' Donald turned the corner when he met his second wife shortly after his divorce. Gradually, tensions eased between her parents, and they both remarried. 'Once they were separate entities and she wasn't a part of his own self-loathing and he dealt with his shit, he could see her as this woman he had wonderful kids with,' Silverman says. As a kid, Sarah had been the family cutup and sang on a cable-access talent show. She went to NYU at 18 and immediately fell in love with stand-up, handing out flyers for a comedy club and working her way up from open mics to $20 gigs. Her dad eventually made her a deal: He would pay for her room and board for three years if she wanted to drop out of college and pursue comedy. Silverman had early success, becoming a Saturday Night Live writer at 22, but was fired after one season, at least partially because she playfully threw a pencil that stabbed Al Franken in the forehead. She wasn't happy. 'I caught rage from my dad, an uncontrollable rage,' says Silverman. Two things changed her life: Zoloft and Garry Shandling. After being fired from SNL, Silverman scored a part playing a misunderstood filthy comedy writer on The Larry Sanders Show, Shandling's classic send-up of the talk-show game. He invited her along with some other friends to his Malibu home. Silverman was so new to L.A. that she thought Malibu was in Hawaii, not 30 minutes up the Pacific Coast Highway. Soon, she was joining Shandling and his friends in his regular pickup basketball games. Shandling, a follower of Buddha and New Age advice guru Eckhart Tolle, shared wisdom with Silverman about suffering. 'He was always searching, because he was tortured,' she says. 'He really passed on that experience, hard lessons he learned in hard ways, that he just gave us on a silver platter. There was pain you had to experience, and there was some pain that could be avoided.' MANY OF SHANDLING'S LESSONS centered around having empathy in both your own life and in your comedy. It took decades for that to sink in with Silverman. In her 2005 special, Jesus Is Magic, she is finishing a bit on undersize humans preferring to be called little people rather than midgets when she perhaps unwittingly puts her finger on American comedy's predilection of punching down for laughs. 'I'll tell you why we make fun of midgets,' she says in the special. 'We're not afraid of them. That's what it boils down to, you know? I mean, I had a joke with the word n—-r in it that I thought was so edgy and hip.… I was at this one club doing my show, and I looked in the front row and the whole table is Black people or African American people … and I didn't do it because I was afraid of them.' Silverman pauses. 'And I ended up changing that joke to ch–ks, so, you live and you learn.' Silverman's riff was standard fare for much of her career. She has been pilloried for doing an episode of her first television show, The Sarah Silverman Program, in blackface, and protested by Asian American groups for her use of the aforementioned slur on Conan. She regrets all of that. 'I felt like the temperature of the world around me at the time was 'We are all liberal so we can say the n-word,'' says Silverman. ''We aren't racist, so we can say this derogatory stuff.' I was playing a character that was arrogant and ignorant, so I thought it was OK. Looking back, my intentions were always good, but they were fucking ignorant.' Silverman devoted an episode to her blackface incident on her Hulu show, I Love You, America, in 2018, and also apologized for cruel jokes she'd made about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in earlier years. 'I don't think of myself as being PC out of fear,' says Silverman. 'Some people got mad at me for apologizing. I only did that because I was sorry. That's a really great rule of thumb: Only apologize when you're sorry.' Silverman's face brightens. 'Always apologize when you're sorry.' Silverman's relationship with her friend Dave Chappelle is instructive. In 2019, she introduced Chappelle when he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Last November, she found herself in Ohio on election night and watched the returns in despair with him. 'As the night went on, he was saying, 'She's still going to get it. There's still a way,'' she says. 'He was doing the desperate math in his head that we all did.' 'Looking back, my intentions were always good, but they were fucking ignorant.' In between those two events, in 2022, Chappelle did an SNL monologue riffing on antisemitic social media posts by Kanye West and NBA star Kyrie Irving. On her podcast, Silverman described her friend's monologue as 'hilarious and brilliant and winning and charming and wildly antisemitic.' Silverman eventually plays a clip from the monologue where Chappelle makes a fantastical leap, claiming that Jewish Americans holding West and Irving accountable for their racism were scapegoating Blacks: 'This is where, you know, I draw a line,' Chappelle says. 'I know the Jewish people have been through terrible things all over the world, but, but, but, but you can't blame them on Black Americans. You just can't.' Silverman came back at him. 'He kind of, like, Jimmy Stewart stutters at the end, to give it a little folksy truth-telling charm,' said Silverman. 'But fuck, the idea [that] calling out massively influential zillionaire superstars for posting lies and promoting hatred of Jews is 'the Jews blaming their troubles on Black Americans' is fucking insane. I can't believe I have to say this.' When we talk, Silverman isn't interested in relitigating the issue, but it goes to a larger concern of hers that traces, in a way, back to her dad — how men channel confusion and depression into rage. She describes it in the context of the anger she sees many men direct toward the transgender community. 'Men have been raised to not be able to feel, not be able to express themselves,' says Silverman. 'The only acceptable emotion for some reason is anger. So what happens? They feel shame and that immediately, like sugar getting converted to carbs, that gets converted into rage and outward blame. And that's how they survive. When I see that anger directed at the trans community, at the nonspecific, nonbinary, it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with themselves. It's ego and the terror of 'If that's who they are, then who am I? Where do I fall?'' SILVERMAN ISN'T IMMUNE to reacting emotionally to issues that cut to the bone. She wasn't raised religious but is hyper-aware of her Jewishness and being seen as the other in polite society. In the Bedwetter musical, a 10-year-old Sarah is confronted by her gentile classmates, who taunt, 'You're short and dark and eww-y.' She replies: 'I know what you mean! I'm totally Jew-y! I'm the type of kid that's too Jew-y to ignore!' That hard-to-ignore quality hasn't always worked out well for her. When some critics expressed horror at Bradley Cooper's utilization of a prosthetic nose in his Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, her phone rang off the hook with comment requests from reporters, many of whom completely missed that Silverman was in the movie playing Bernstein's sister. She has confessed to feeling no emotional attachment to Israel, but with some of her family living there, the Hamas massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, left her devastated. A few days after the attack, Silverman hastily shared an Instagram post forwarded by a friend, who'd said it was in support of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. In reality, the post suggested Israel had no obligation to provide food and water to Gaza as long as the hostages were being held. Realizing her mistake, Silverman quickly deleted the post, but it had already been screen-grabbed by another user. Silverman immediately received a wave of backlash from friends and critics. She apologized but still seems shook and uncertain about how to deal with the conflict as a comedian. Seeing the reactions to Oct. 7 left her 'stunned,' she says. 'The alienation of liberal Jews was astounding. Everyone's afraid to say anything. I couldn't even imagine doing stand-up. I was scared. And it was Chelsea Handler who was like, 'Get your fucking ass up. Your job is to make people laugh. That's your job.' And I needed that. Boy, I needed it. And then she made me open for her at the Pantages [Theatre]. And it was honestly a gift, because I realize that it's important.' BACK AT THE STUDIO, Silverman ends the show with her trademark goodbye line: 'Dad, we're winding down.' We then move to the lounge, and I ask a question I was too chicken to ask at her house. I tell her I'd written about my own family, never talking about my father after he was killed in a plane crash. I wonder if her parents had ever reached a point where they could talk about the death of her brother Jeffrey. Silverman exhales. 'I'm going to tell you a big bomb.' She begins by telling me that when she wrote her memoir, she was struck by the fact that while her parents had different versions of every issue of their marriage, they spoke the same words in describing how their son died. 'The story was that something happened with the crib, and Jeffrey's little body slid and he got suffocated. But if you look back, there was never a lawsuit with the crib company or anything,' says Silverman. Then, in 2022, the year before he died, Donald Silverman came to see a production of Bedwetter in Manhattan. He watched it five nights in a row. The musical features a scene about little Sarah making her joke about Jeffrey's death and no one laughing. Donald came backstage after the fifth show and told Sarah a different story about Jeffrey and his violent father. 'My dad says, 'I always felt that he was crying or something, and my dad shook him,'' remembers Silverman. ''He shook him in a rage and killed him.'' Silverman's manager gasps from a nearby sofa. The room goes quiet for a moment. 'As soon as he said it, it was like, 'Of course, that's what happened,'' says Silverman. 'His mother always stood by her husband. She watched him beat the shit out of her son. I couldn't ask my mom, because she was dead.' She sighs and then smiles. 'That was my dad,' says Silverman with a laugh. 'We were playing poker once, and he just dropped in that one of the priests at his school fondled him. I was like 'Dad!'' She gives me a 'What are you gonna do?' look. 'He was always dropping bombs.' And that's when I realize Sarah Silverman is very much her father's daughter. This story has been updated to clarify the circumstances surrounding Silverman's sharing of an Instagram post about the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Production Credits Hair and makeup by BRETT FREEDMAN for CELESTINE AGENCY. Digital technician: RYAN GEARY. Photographic assistance: MELISA MENDEZ. Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Amanda Knox says she is GRATEFUL she was wrongly convicted of Meredith Kercher's murder - because it helped her 'know herself' better
Amanda Knox has insisted in a new interview she actually feels gratitude for being wrongly convicted of murdering student flatmate Meredith Kercher. The US writer and broadcaster, 37, who served four years in an Italian prison for the British student's killing, made the claims while promoting her new memoir - saying she now feels she knows herself better. Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old from Coulsdon in south London, was found stabbed to death in her bedroom at the apartment she shared with Ms Knox in the Italian hilltop town of Perugia on November 2 2007. American student Ms Knox, 20 at the time, and her Italian boyfriend Sollecito, who was 23, were arrested four days later and went on to be convicted at trial twice. Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy 's highest court in 2015. Police also arrested Rudy Guede, who ran a local bar - and his bloody fingerprints and DNA found at the crime scene ensured his conviction for murder, before he served 14 years of a 30-year prison sentence then was freed in 2021. Ms Knox has now written a new memoir, called Free: My Search for Meaning, that she has been publicising. And she opened up about her feelings about her experiences on former newspaper editor Andy Coulson's Crisis, What Crisis? podcast. He highlighted a phrase in her new book saying: 'I wouldn't wish my wrongful conviction on anyone, but nor would I trade it for the world.' Ms Knox expanded further by quoting ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, as she replied: 'I am who I am today because of what I went through. 'And there's this great stoic saying by Seneca where he says, basically paraphrasing, "I have pity for you if you have never gone through misfortune, because you do not know what you are capable of". 'And so I know as a result of having gone through this experience, both my greatest weaknesses and my greatest strengths. 'I know myself in a way that I would not have otherwise been able to know myself. And for that, I am grateful.' Ms Knox also told how she felt lucky to be alive, crediting her then-relationship with Mr Sollecito for being away from her student property when Guede broke in and attacked her flatmate. She said: 'I'm grateful to be alive today because, you know, if I had not met my at the time boyfriend and then eventually co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito five days before this crime occurred, I would have been home when this person broke into our house and I might have been raped and murdered too. 'So the very fact that I'm alive today to tell the tale, that I survived my own study abroad is a result of some fluke luck. 'And the fact that I spent four years in prison instead of 40 - I know people who have spent longer in prison as an innocent person than I have been alive. 'The fact that I get to have a family and have children when so many women who are wrongly convicted come out and it's too late and they lost that opportunity.' She met her now-husband Christopher Robinson in 2015 and they have two children - daughter Eureka, born in 2021, and son Echo, born in September 2023. Ms Knox added: 'There are so many things that I have that at one point in my life I thought I had lost - and just the experience of gratitude is kind of overwhelming 'It's not something that I have to remind myself of when I'm feeling down - it's very present in my life. 'And that's another reason to feel grateful, that I just have the kind of disposition that makes feeling gratitude for what I have in my life easy for me - that is not necessarily easy for other people.' Ms Kercher's family and their lawyers have been critical of Ms Knox and she acknowledged their antipathy - while also praising her student friend. Ms Knox told the podcast: 'This was a person I knew, who was kind to me, who I had pizza with and who I went dancing with and baked cookies with. And she was a very, very lovely person.' A dedication in the new book states: 'To Meredith, rest in peace, whose legacy I will never stop honouring, and her family, because I still hope we can share our grief one day.' Ms Knox said in the Crisis, What Crisis? podcast interview about Ms Kercher's family: 'I don't push. I've not pursued aggressively a relationship with them, because I know that they have to confront a lot of trauma just to even think about me, much less have a relationship with me or communicate with me or meet with me. 'So I try to be very sensitive to that. At the same time though, the day that Rudy Guede broke into our house and raped and murdered Meredith, all of our lives were destroyed, mine too, and we have a lot more in common than I think they realise. 'And I blame the prosecution and the media and especially their attorney, who I think has been extremely irresponsible, for making it impossible for that kind of connection to happen.' Ms Knox has previously released a bestselling memoir called Waiting to Be Heard, in 2013, and five years later started hosting a television series which examined the 'gendered nature of public shaming'. A Netflix series was also released in 2016 telling her story and she has been working on an upcoming show, Blue Moon, with Monica Lewinksy, to air on Hulu. Ms Knox described in her latest podcast appearance how she has tried to explain her prison past in an 'age-appropriate' way to her three-year-old daughter. She said: 'One of those amazing consequences of sharing your story is how someone responds - and my daughter responds almost like I've told her a fairytale. 'And she'll want to play pretend when mommy goes to Italy. So when we go to the park, if there's bars somewhere, she'll get behind the bars and be like, "Look, I'm mommy. Let me out".' Earlier this year Ms Knox broke down in tears after her conviction of slandering her former boss was upheld by Italy's highest court. She was found guilty of slander after she wrongly accused her then-boss Patrick Lumumba of murdering Ms Kercher - and in January lost her appeal to have the slander charge overturned, leaving her with a permanent criminal record in Italy. Ms Knox, who did not attend court but followed the hearing from the US, shared a video of herself weeping after the conviction was upheld, saying it was 'disappointing' that she will have a 'criminal record forever for something I didn't do'. Her defense team said she only accused Lumumba, a Congolese man who employed her at a bar in Perugia, during a long night of questioning and under pressure from police, who they said fed her false information. The European Court of Human Rights found that the police deprived her of a lawyer and provided a translator who acted more as a mediator. Reached by telephone following the latest court decision in January, Mr Lumumba said he was satisfied with the verdict. He added: 'Amanda was wrong. This verdict has to accompany her for the rest of her life.' In March this year Ms Knox revealed details about her unlikely friendship with the Italian prosecutor who convicted her of murder - revealing she sees it as a form of 'therapy' that helps the other feel 'absolved'. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and Knox forged a bond in the years after her conviction was overturned, with the lawyer stating previously he now has a 'good opinion' of her. The former adversaries have grown close despite Mr Mignini believing Knox was at the scene of the crime and declaring that Ms Kercher 'did not get justice'. Ms Knox's correspondence with Mr Mignini began when she wrote him letters, delivered by go-between priest Don Saulo Scarabattoli, before moving to the messaging platform WhatsApp and eventually meeting again. They now share personal news, family photographs and send holiday greetings to each other, after developing a friendship. Ms Knox told the Guardian: 'As much as I want him to absolve me, I think he wants me to absolve him more. 'The one time in my life where I felt unstoppable was when I realised that it wasn't about what I was going to get from him, it was about what I was going to give him.'
