A planned stand-up comedy performance by Amanda Knox, the American woman once convicted and later acquitted of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy, has ignited fierce public controversy, with criticism coming directly from Kercher’s own family.
In an interview with the BBC, Stephanie Kercher, the older sister of the slain victim, made clear that her family finds the idea of turning the 2007 killing and the surrounding legal saga into comedic material deeply unacceptable. Stephanie emphasized that there is nothing humorous about the brutal death of her sister, a young exchange student whose life was cut short in Perugia, and that no comedian could extract legitimate comedy value from the tragedy that shattered her family.
Knox, who spent four years in an Italian prison before her conviction was overturned on appeal in 2011 and confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015, has announced a series of comedy performances across the U.K. and Ireland, where she plans to draw from her widely publicized experience with the Italian criminal justice system. The booking of these shows immediately triggered backlash from crime victims’ advocates and members of the public, who argue that Knox is profiting from a violent crime that claimed an innocent young woman’s life.
Critics of the show have also noted that the core subject of the comedy routine revolves directly around the circumstances of Kercher’s death and Knox’s own legal battle, making the family’s pain an unavoidable part of the performance. To date, Knox has not issued a public response to the Kercher family’s comments or the growing calls to cancel the scheduled tour dates.