Amanda Knox ‘Doing Great’ After Feeling ‘Hated for So Long’
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ABC News(NEW YORK) — Amanda Knox said on Wednesday she is “doing great,” but added that it took a while for her to feel that way after spending four years in an Italian prison and being “so hated for so long.”
“I’m doing great and it’s incredible to feel that again because I felt so stunted and so limited and so hated for so long,” Knox, 25, told ABC’s Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts. “It’s nice not to have to have that all the time.”
During the investigation and trial for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, Knox was called a devil and reviled in tabloid press, accused of killing Kercher in a sex game gone wrong.
Knox, now a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, describes her life today as full of “wonderful” friends, a “wonderful” boyfriend and “great teachers.” She is not, however, the same 20-year-old who traveled to Perugia in 2007 to study abroad.
“I’m just a little more sober, a little more somber,” Knox said. “I almost felt that I was disappointing my family because of how serious [I was].”
“I almost couldn’t get out of my head when I first came home,” she said. “That was the only thing that I had left in prison was my own mind, and that’s where I hid myself.”
While on trial and in prison for Kercher’s murder, Knox kept detailed recollections that are now laid bare in her new book, Waiting to Be Heard.
The book holds nothing back, detailing everything from Knox’s drug abuse to her sexual encounters to her struggles to understand what was happening to her in a foreign land.
“I wanted people to know who I was because I felt that I was lost in the middle of this storm and I was taken over,” she said. “There’s no use to me writing this if I wasn’t completely honest and completely bare.”
“I felt like I’ve been laid bare for so long that I’m only happy to give that,” Knox said. “I poured my heart into it and I gave it everything I had.”
Knox says she always wanted to be completely honest in her book to help Kercher’s family.
“Meredith Kercher died and her family deserves answers and the prosecution didn’t give them,” she said. “I also want them to be able to come away with my perspective because they’re seeking answers and they deserve to have answers and give every answer that I can in my book.”
Kercher’s sister issued a statement following the release of Knox’s book on Tuesday that the family would not be reading the book. The family has also spoken out in support of the March 26 decision by the Italian Supreme Court to overturn the acquittal and order Knox to stand trial again.
Despite what lies ahead, Knox says she still hopes to connect with the Kerchers.
“It’s the first way that I can reach out to them,” she said of her book. “I really hope that we can connect one day.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio