The 31-year-old's murder conviction was annulled in 2015.
Amanda Knox has returned to Italy.
On Thursday, Knox, 31, arrived in Italy -- a country she hasn't visited since her and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kerche was annulled in 2015 -- ahead of a speech organized by the Italy Innocence Project. Knox initially announced her trip on Twitter in May, saying she was "honored to accept their invitation to speak."
While Knox took to Twitter ahead of the trip to announce that she wouldn't give interviews in the days leading up to her speech -- "in the hopes that what I say in Modena will speak for itself" -- she and her fiance, Christopher Robinson, penned an essay about her decision to return.
"I’m about to return to Italy for the first time since I was released from prison and fled the country in a high-speed chase, paparazzi literally ramming the back of my stepdad’s rental car," she wrote on Gen by Medium. "I’m doing so because I’ve been invited by the Italy Innocence Project to speak about wrongful convictions and trial by media. And as this homecoming looms (or is it a 'deployment' or 'madness' -- no word seems to fit), a different sort of surreal moment is at the forefront of my mind."
The essay went on to detail Knox's challenging relationship with the media both prior to and including the Netflix documentary about her case that premiered in September 2016. Knox also wrote about the pitfalls and powers of social media, on which she made her Instagram profile public back in 2017.
"I just wanted to have what every other person around me had, the freedom to shout into the wind and say, 'Here I am!'" Knox explained. "The freedom to strike up an unexpected conversation with a friendly digital stranger. I have that now, but for me, it comes with the cost of absorbing insults and hatred and having my life fed into the content machine that seems endlessly hungry, especially now that I’m going back to Italy."
"... The mistakes of the Italian judicial system and the ravenous appetite of a media that does not distinguish between a person’s life and clickworthy content pushed me into the public sphere," she added. "I’ve since chosen to remain here, to let the world see my salade nicoise and cat photos. But this doesn’t mean I’m happy with the way my life is consumed or how the lives of others get reduced to content."
Robinson is accompanying Knox on the trip, and even took to Twitter ahead of their travels to joke about their itinerary.
"Last time I was in Italy, I took a train to Florence, blew my money on a 100€ bottle of barolo which I drank by myself while writing a bad short story. Then I slept underneath the Ponte Vecchio," he wrote. "This time with @amandaknox is going to be, shall we say...different."
Meanwhile Knox admitted on Instagram that she was "feeling frayed" ahead of her travels, before sharing a selfie with Robinson, asking followers to wish them "Buon viaggio!" or "have a nice trip."
Watch the video below for more on Knox.
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