Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky — Amanda Knox

Date: August 19, 2025
Podcast: Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky (Wondery)
Guest: Amanda Knox (activist, author)
Host: Monica Lewinsky

Episode Overview

In this profoundly candid episode, Monica Lewinsky sits down with Amanda Knox just as the Hulu miniseries dramatizing Amanda's story releases its trailer. Together, they navigate the emotional terrain of surviving public vilification, wrongful convictions, loss, grief, and the ongoing process of reclaiming identity and voice after trauma. With striking vulnerability and humor, Monica and Amanda share their mutual—and rare—understanding of what it means to be at the center of media storms, discussing victimhood, the complexity of healing, and the urgent need for more nuanced conversations about justice, trauma, and the roles of women in the public narrative.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Survivor Solidarity and Public Vilification

• Connecting through Shared Experience

  • Both Amanda and Monica recount the momentous pressure of having private trauma turned into public spectacle, and the surreal experience of watching their own interviews for the first time.
  • “I did my first interview… and made the huge mistake of having a viewing party, which highly do not recommend…" — Monica (01:17)
  • Amanda relates: “You know what? I had a viewing party too.” (01:34)

• Intensity of the Trauma

  • Amanda emphasizes how the horror of wrongful imprisonment is often underestimated or trivialized by outsiders.
  • “I noticed that some people don’t really remember or realize, like, it was really, really bad... what I went through was super intense. It was really, really scary, and I didn’t know what to do. And I was a kid.” — Amanda (04:20)

The Complexity of Victimhood

• Who Gets to be a Victim?

  • Monica discusses her essay “Who Gets to Live in Victimville?” touching on society’s tendency to rank suffering or deny victimhood based on public perception.
    • “It’s very interesting… people wanting to determine whether or not someone was a victim… you were also a victim.” — Monica (05:09)
  • Amanda reflects on the erasure of her own pain in the narrative: “I push back and go, there are lots of victims in this story, and I am one of them." (04:39)

• Grieving Meredith

  • Amanda shares a wrenching story of being re-traumatized by the legal process when attorneys showed her crime scene photos of Meredith Kercher for the first time.
    • “I become hysterical… guards come and get me because I’m freaking out… as they’re dragging me out… they’re like, ‘You did that? Why are you acting surprised?’” — Amanda (08:01)
  • She describes the lifelong challenge of carrying Meredith’s legacy and the impossibility of traditional grief under public suspicion.

Media, Storytelling, and Agency

• Executive Producing Her Own Story

  • Amanda recognizes the rare opportunity to co-create a nuanced account of her experience, turning down multiple offers before collaborating with Monica and the series team.
    • “So many other people had been authoring my experience for so long, and [K.J. Steinberg] really recognized the value in allowing me to be a part of the authoring of this work…” — Amanda (17:39)
  • She addresses the responsibility of representing all individuals touched by the case truthfully, not as “diminished little ideas of people.” — (19:30)

• The Anatomy of Bias & Women Pitted Against Women

  • Both women discuss systemic misogyny, internal and external, that frames women as antagonists—publicly pit against each other for entertainment or political reasons.
    • “The public sort of wants to take two women and... say who’s the real victim? And it’s just like, why can’t we all—why? We are all victims of this situation.” — Amanda (20:17)
    • Amanda reflects on a female prosecutor and female journalists who contributed to her vilification: "There were absolutely people who were directly responsible for my wrongful conviction, who were women." (22:09)

Evolving Conversations: #MeToo, Justice, and Trauma

• Navigating the Aftermath of #MeToo

  • Monica shares how the #MeToo movement reframed her own public experience, while Amanda details its dual-edge for those wrongfully accused.
    • Amanda: “A part of me was celebrating… we’re finally seeing ways that women get victimized and then disbelieved… But then… my friends in the wrongly convicted circles say, yes, we should believe victims, but also, evidence still matters… there’s no zero sum to victimhood.” (26:53)

• Nuanced Reform and Victims’ Rights

  • Amanda identifies the dichotomy between direct crime victims and victims of wrongful prosecution, noting how they’re often presented as mutually exclusive populations.
    • “People who are victims of crime… are pitted against people who are wrongly convicted. There's this tension… but everyone has gone through trauma.” — Amanda (25:31, 26:53)

• Changing Systems and “Emotional Urgent Care”

  • The discussion turns toward training law enforcement in trauma-informed approaches and dreaming of "emotional urgent care centers" to give trauma the weight of physical injury.
    • “Making emotional trauma… the same, giving it the same weight that we do physical trauma in our world.” — Monica (33:14)

Recovery, Identity, and Inner Compass

• Post-Trauma: Relearning Life

  • Amanda describes the fraught and slow process of reacclimating to “normal life” after being released from prison, including acute social anxiety, panic attacks, and the difficulty in trusting new people.
    • “Every time I felt like I tried to go out there and talk and make connections with people, I felt like it didn’t matter what I said. People had already decided what they thought…” — Amanda (37:26)
  • Both Monica and Amanda recount trying to return to schooling as a pathway to normalcy, only to find their public pasts irrevocably define them.

• Discomfort vs. Danger

  • Amanda shares her recent realization about the difficulty, post-trauma, in distinguishing real threats from discomfort—a key part of regaining self-trust and agency.
    • “One of the consequences of going through a trauma is… you feel like you can’t trust yourself… you become sort of like psychologically colorblind so that, like, red flags blur into green and you can’t tell the difference." (42:16)
  • She discusses grounding herself through friendships, therapy, poetry, stoicism, and meditation.

• Value of Humor

  • Amanda credits reclaiming her sense of humor as an essential part of healing: “One thing that I’m reclaiming is my sense of humor… tragedy plus time equals comedy.” (65:26)

Sexualization, Public Shame, and Intimacy

• Monica broaches the topic of reclaiming sexuality after being publicly shamed for it—“blowjob queen and portly pepper pot”—to which Amanda reflects on the sexualization and projection central to her own vilification:
  • “People were projecting not just their fears onto me, but their fantasies… I was a sexualized child. And yes, technically I was an adult… but I was a child and I had zero context… I have no doubt that the vilification of me… was sexual as well.” — Amanda (59:38)
  • Amanda lays out the long-term effects on intimacy and how, for years, she only felt safe dating people she knew from “before.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Collective Trauma and Empathy:

  "Not everyone is going to be in a scandalous... but everyone is going to go through something traumatic and have to make sense of it in the aftermath and understand that they are both indelibly changed. But also that it's not over."
  — Amanda (14:23)

• On Ownership of Narrative:

  “So many other people had been authoring my experience for so long… [it was] beautiful… being in the room with these other incredible writers…”
  — Amanda (17:39)

• On Pitting Women Against Women:

  “Why can’t we all… why? We are all victims of this situation. Like, we. Why are we being pitted against each other in such a big and obvious way and as tools for someone else's agenda?”
  — Amanda (20:17)

• On Lingering Trauma and Trust:

  “One of the consequences of going through a trauma is not only do you feel like you can't trust the world anymore, but you also feel like you can't trust yourself.”
  — Amanda (42:16)

• On Sexualized Vilification:

  “My sexuality was used against me, was turned against me... There was something pornographic about the way that I was accused and vilified.”
  — Amanda (59:38)

• On Humor as Reclamation:

  “One thing that I'm reclaiming is my sense of humor… tragedy plus time equals comedy.”
  — Amanda (65:26)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:17–03:08 — The nightmare of the first interviews and the surreal intensity of public scrutiny.
• 04:20–05:09 — The public’s perceptions, denial of Amanda’s victimhood.
• 07:24–11:52 — Amanda’s story of seeing Meredith’s crime scene photo for the first time and the denial of her right to grieve.
• 13:18–15:18 — The true cost of public scandal—long after the headlines fade.
• 17:29–19:44 — Taking creative ownership of her own narrative in the Hulu series.
• 20:17–23:26 — Misogyny, internal and external, and the pitting of women as rivals and victims.
• 25:26–29:18 — Navigating MeToo, wrongful conviction advocacy, and the zero-sum approach society takes to victimhood.
• 33:13–34:26 — Monica’s dream of “emotional urgent care” for trauma survivors; Amanda’s advocacy for trauma-informed justice.
• 37:12–39:29 — The unique isolation of global infamy and public shaming.
• 42:16–43:26 — Regaining self-trust: distinguishing discomfort from danger after trauma.
• 53:41–54:09 — Meditation and the conscious, non-vengeful telling of her story.
• 59:38–64:08 — The sexualized lens of infamy and the struggle to reclaim intimacy, trust, and self-worth.
• 65:26–66:01 — Reclaiming humor and the grounding power of laughter after hardship.

Closing Reflections

The episode is an arresting, empathetic conversation between two women indelibly marked by public scandal. Amanda Knox articulates with honesty the enduring pain of trauma, the agony of injustice, and the slow, nonlinear journey toward healing. Monica Lewinsky’s parallel story provides resonance, support, and proof that it is possible to reclaim one’s narrative—even as both acknowledge new fears and ongoing struggles.

Whether discussing societal bias, personal recovery, or the specifics of storytelling, the episode invites listeners not only to witness Amanda’s reclamation, but to consider their own. Above all, it insists on the multiplicity of victimhood, the need for nuance, and the hope and humor that can emerge from even the “wackadoodle” events life delivers.