Amanda Knox Blasts Matt Damon's 'Stillwater' For Damaging Her Public Image

KEY POINTS

"Stillwater" is loosely based on the murder of Knox's roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007
Knox was initially convicted in the murder of Kercher but was eventually acquitted
Knox said "Stillwater" depicted events she "had no hand in"

Amanda Knox has expressed her frustration over Matt Damon’s new film, “Stillwater.” Ahead of its theater release on July 30, Knox took to Twitter to slam it for “wrongfully” depicting her real-life experience.

“Stillwater” was loosely inspired by the murder of Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, director and co-writer Tom McCarthy described how Knox’s ties to the murder case inspired him and his co-writers to write the drama.

He said they wanted to reimagine a scenario that would show what it was like for Knox’s family to endure her conviction overseas before her eventual acquittal.

“But let me take this piece of the story—an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime and she ends up in jail — and fictionalize everything around it," he told the publication.

In a Twitter thread, Knox spoke out Thursday against how “Stillwater” used her story. “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?” she wrote. “I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent. Most recently, the film #STILLWATER.”

This new film by director Tom McCarthy, starring Matt Damon, is “loosely based” or “directly inspired by” the “Amanda Knox saga,” as Vanity Fair put it in a for-profit article promoting a for-profit film, neither of which I am affiliated with.
— Amanda Knox (@amandaknox) July 29, 2021

She also slammed the phrase “The Amanda Knox Saga,” saying it does not refer to “anything I did.” “It refers to the events that resulted from the murder of Meredith Kercher by a burglar named Rudy Guede,” she wrote.

Knox blamed her wrongful conviction on “the shoddy police work, prosecutorial tunnel vision, and the Italian police’s refusal to admit their mistakes.”

She went on to defend herself, saying she had no control over her public image while in prison. “Everyone else in that ‘saga’ had more influence over events than I did,” she said, adding: “The erroneous focus on me by the authorities led to an erroneous focus on me by the press, which shaped how I was viewed.”

Knox was convicted of Kercher's murder in Italy but was eventually acquitted. Her acquittal was overturned in 2013 and she was convicted once again in 2014. Her conviction was finally overturned in 2015.