What is Amanda Knox's Net Worth?
Amanda Knox is an author, activist, and journalist who has a net worth of $500 thousand. Amanda Knox is known for her wrongful 2007 murder conviction in Italy and her consequent sentencing to prison. After being freed in 2011, she was fully exonerated by Italy's highest court in the spring of 2015. Knox went on to publish a memoir, "Waiting to Be Heard," and to host the Facebook Watch series "The Scarlet Letter Reports."
Book Deal
In 2013, Amanda was paid a reported $4 million to write what became "Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir". In an interview upon the release of the memoir, Amanda reported that the majority of her after-tax book deal earnings went towards paying down considerable legal fees incurred during the Italian saga.
Early Life and Education
Amanda Knox was born on July 9, 1987 in Seattle, Washington as the eldest of three daughters of Edda, a math teacher, and Curt, a vice president of finance at Macy's. Her parents divorced when she was 10, and her mother subsequently got remarried to Chris Mellas. When she was 15, Knox traveled to Italy for the first time on a family vacation. Not long after that, she graduated from Seattle Preparatory School. For her higher education, Knox went to the University of Washington, where she studied linguistics.
Arrival in Italy
In 2007, Knox traveled to Perugia, Umbria, Italy. There, she moved into a four-bedroom, ground-floor apartment with three other women: British exchange student Meredith Kercher and a pair of Italian trainee lawyers. To pay her bills, Knox took a part-time job at a bar called Le Chic. In her apartment building, there was a walk-out semi-basement apartment that was rented by young Italian men with whom Knox and Kercher became friends. Eventually, Kercher became romantically involved with one of the men, Giacomo Silenzi. A little later, Knox began spending her time at the flat of Raffaele Sollecito, a software engineer student she met at a concert. An acquaintance of the men named Rudy Guede also became part of the group.
Discovery of Murder
Upon returning to her and Kercher's apartment after spending time with Sollecito, Knox found an open front door, bloodstains in the bathroom, and Kercher's bedroom door locked. She then left with Sollecito. Coming back to the apartment, Knox unsuccessfully attempted to break down Kercher's bedroom door. She then called her mother, who urged her to contact the police. When the police refused to kick down Kercher's bedroom door, believing the circumstances didn't justify damaging private property, a friend of Filomena Romanelli's, one of Knox's Italian flatmates, did so herself. On the other side was Kercher's lifeless body with stab wounds to its neck.
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Arrest
Following the murder, Knox was repeatedly questioned by investigators as a potential witness. She was not given any legal counsel, as Italian law only requires the appointment of a lawyer for a suspect of a crime. On the night of November 5, 2007, Knox voluntarily went to the police station, and the next day, was arrested alongside her boyfriend Sollecito and her employer Patrick Lumumba. Charges against the latter were soon dropped. It is disputed what exactly happened at the police station that led to the arrests.
Trial and Conviction
At trial, Knox testified that she had spent the whole night at Sollecito's flat during the time of Kercher's murder. However, a group of police refused to believe her. She further asserted that she had been manipulated by investigators and police, and was denied access to food, water, or the bathroom. Under immense duress, Knox went on to falsely state that she had been home when Kercher was murdered, and believed the murderer to be her employer Lumumba. However, customers of Lumumba who had been served by him on the night of the murder delivered him a full alibi. As the investigation continued, the bloodstained fingerprints of Rudy Guede were found on the bedding under Kercher's body; Guede, who had fled to Germany, was consequently extradited back to Italy. After that, he, Knox, and Sollecito were all charged with murder. In 2008, Guede was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher, and was sentenced to a reduced term of 16 years in prison.
In 2009, Knox and Sollecito pleaded not guilty to their various charges. After a messy and heavily publicized trial, Knox was convicted of murder, sexual violence, simulating a burglary, and defamation. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years. While the verdict was largely approved of by the Italian public, which had been fed a negative image of Knox by the Italian media, it was much less favorably viewed in the United States. There, lawyers and forensic experts pointed to all the ways in which Knox had been misrepresented and manipulated by the Italian legal system.
Acquittal and Release
In late 2010, an appeal trial began for Knox and Sollecito. A court-ordered review of the DNA evidence found that numerous basic errors had occurred in the gathering and analysis of the evidence. In early October, 2011, Knox and Sollecito were found not guilty of Kercher's murder, and were released from prison. However, a protracted legal process ensued, during which the prosecution successfully appealed against Knox's acquittal. Moreover, controversy over the forensics of the investigation continued. Ultimately, in late March, 2015, Knox and Sollecito were definitively acquitted of the murder by Italy's highest court. Knox remained convicted for defamation, but was acquitted of that charge in early 2016.
Media Career and Portrayals
After her release from prison, Knox wrote and published her memoir "Waiting to Be Heard," which became a bestseller. She also wrote for the West Seattle Herald and began hosting the Facebook Watch series "The Scarlet Letter Reports" and the podcast "The Truth About True Crime." Meanwhile, Knox was the subject of the 2011 Lifetime television film "Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy," starring Hayden Panettiere, and the 2016 Netflix documentary "Amanda Knox."
Personal Life
In 2018, Knox married author Christopher Robinson. The pair had a daughter in 2021. In August 2023 they announced they were expecting a second child.
