Amanda Knox’s Stand-Up Comedy Show Ignites Fierce Backlash
Her Fringe show ‘Cartwheel’ turns wrongful conviction and tabloid infamy into punchlines — while Meredith Kercher’s sister calls for it to be shut down.
ByBernadette Giacomazzo
August 7, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Amanda Knox is debuting an autobiographical stand-up show called Cartwheel at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, using her wrongful conviction, prison time, and life as a mother as material and insisting it’s about surviving trauma, not joking about Meredith Kercher’s murder.
- The show has split audiences and sparked a petition nearing 10,000 signatures, along with a sharp public rebuke from Meredith’s sister Stephanie Kercher, who says Meredith “absolutely wouldn’t find these topics of any comedy value” and urges Knox to consider the family’s pain.
- Despite calls for cancellation and an appeal to U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Fringe organizers say programming decisions are up to artists and venues, while Knox continues her broader effort to reclaim her narrative through books, podcasts, TV projects, and now comedy.
Amanda Knox is officially trying stand-up comedy—and the family of her murdered former roommate is not laughing. Nearly two decades after Meredith Kercher was killed in Perugia, Italy, Knox has brought an autobiographical show called Cartwheel to Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where she mines her wrongful conviction, imprisonment, and public infamy for material.
Unsurprisingly, the show has triggered a petition demanding its cancellation and a blunt rebuke from Kercher’s sister
That petition has collected nearly 10,000 signatures, but the Fringe has refused to pull the production, saying programming decisions remain with individual artists and venues. Inside the room, the response has reportedly been just as divided. Some audience members have offered polite laughs, while others have sat stone-faced as Knox delivers jokes rooted in one of the most notorious murder investigations of the century.
“My friends and family are actually really nervous for me despite my spotless record in the court of public opinion,” Knox says during the performance. Another line goes directly at the suspicion that followed her even after she was cleared: “To this day, some people say, ‘She’s innocent, but she sure acted guilty.’”
Knox maintains that Cartwheel is about surviving wrongful imprisonment and navigating motherhood—not turning Kercher’s death into a punchline.
Stephanie Kercher, Meredith’s sister, wants Knox to consider how the show lands outside that framing. “Think about the family here, think about her friends,” she said. “If it was your sister that this had happened to—because I know you have a sister as well—how would you feel?”
Stephanie also rejected Knox’s claim that Meredith might have found the performance funny. “Meredith absolutely wouldn’t find these topics of any comedy value,” she said. The Kercher family has now called on British Prime Minister Andy Burnham to intervene.
Meredith Kercher was a 21-year-old University of Leeds exchange student when she was sexually assaulted and murdered in the apartment she shared with Knox in 2007.
Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in a case driven by sensational coverage and deeply flawed forensic work. Both were definitively acquitted by Italy’s highest court in 2015 after Knox spent almost four years in prison.
Rudy Guede, whose DNA and fingerprints were recovered from the crime scene, was separately convicted of Kercher’s rape and murder.
Knox has spent the years since reclaiming her story through two books, public speaking, podcasts, and the Hulu series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, which she executive produced.
She insists comedy is simply her latest way of confronting traumatic material, asking audiences to recognize the “deep heart and sensitivity” behind the show.
