Controversy at the Edinburgh Fringe festival over Amanda Knox's monologue

BarcelonaAmanda Knox has just premiered her monologue Cartwheel, and has already stirred up controversy. The comedian, convicted of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007 in Perugia and later acquitted, represents until August 17 a comedy show stand-up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the most prominent theatrical events of the summer in Europe. In the show, which has sold out all tickets, Knox recounts her years in prison through humor. The initiative has not pleased Kercher's family, who consider that it trivializes violence and has collected over 40,000 signatures so that they cancel it. However, the Fringe has said in a statement reported by The Guardian which will keep it on display and that "he is not afraid of controversy".

In her defense, Knox assures that the show treats Kercher's death with respect and argues that the cancellation requests were made before the premiere, so "nobody who signed it has seen the show." According to the monologuist, the petition contains "false accusations" about her show, which "does not joke about Meredith's death." On stage, Knox reflects on motherhood and wonders how she will explain to her "daughter what happened in Perugia" while doing household chores. The comedian talks about Kercher and says she never had the chance to mourn her friend, according to the reporter for The Scotsman, who attended the premiere of the play. He also recalls anecdotes about their friendship and says that, after the murder, everyone "was obsessed" with judging her.

For their part, Kercher's family argues that the show "turns a real murder into entertainment" and "normalizes and trivializes violence." In response to the controversy, Fringe festival director Tony Lankester told BBC Radio Scotland that "the decision on whether the show goes ahead or not rests with Knox" and expressed his support for the comedian. "However understanding we may be of individual cases that arise, and as a father I can perfectly understand his pain, I believe that this cannot be a criterion for cancellation," Lankester added.

"The price of telling the truth"

Cartwheel is the umpteenth artistic representation of a high-profile criminal case that, over the years, has become a documentary, a fictional series, and two books written by Knox herself, Waiting to be heard (2013) and Free: my search of meaning (2025). The crime took place in 2007, when Meredith Kercher was found dead in the student apartment she shared with Knox. She and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 of murder and sexual assault and spent four years in prison. In 2011 they were acquitted, in 2014 Knox was declared guilty again, and finally, in 2015 she was exonerated. Since then, Knox has repeatedly stated that she has had great difficulty rebuilding her life and shedding the criminal accusations. "Cartwheel speaks precisely about this, about how to raise a daughter in an unjust and dangerous world for women and about the price of being a mother who tells the truth to her children," Knox defends now.