Speaker 1: Welcome to Guys We Fucked. Guys We Guys Book. I'm Christina.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about last night anti sluck shaming podcast. I
Speaker 1: never stopped. Hey fucker's Welcome to another episode of Guys
Speaker 1: We Fuck. It's the anti slut him podcast. I'm Corinne,
Speaker 1: I'm Christina. Hello. So today's news story um is entertainment based.
Speaker 1: The Actors Union signs agreement to eliminate casting couch, which
Speaker 1: is funny because casting couch seems like something you only
Speaker 1: see import but it's actually a real thing. And when
Speaker 1: they say casting couch, they mean like private meetings in
Speaker 1: like hotels or restaurants that young as that young actors,
Speaker 1: female actors usually have a lot of times with prominent
Speaker 1: men in the industry. Yeah, and so this was a
Speaker 1: huff Post Women article and the deal, following the fall
Speaker 1: of Harvey Wine scene in the Rise of the Meat
Speaker 1: to Move Man, aims to further and entertainment industry culture change.
Speaker 1: So SAG after which is the country's largest actors union,
Speaker 1: has announced a new agreement with broadcast networks including ABC, CBS, NBC,
Speaker 1: and Fox that aims to reduce auditions or meetings for
Speaker 1: members in private hotel rooms or residences, which surprisingly happens
Speaker 1: a lot really because I'm like, just meet for dinner
Speaker 1: at a goddamn restaurant, talk about but but even like
Speaker 1: but even that, like I've had I've had a meeting.
Speaker 1: I had a meeting with a director of a play
Speaker 1: when I was in college, like at a cafe and
Speaker 1: he ended up being the Chelsea rapist. So that's a
Speaker 1: fun story. Did he try to get you upstairs or not? No?
Speaker 1: But I was smart enough, like I brought Tommy with me,
Speaker 1: and I also like, I mean, this is not but
Speaker 1: I just like you know, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do I wouldn't go to someone's private It
Speaker 1: just wouldn't happen. I mean, but yeah, the type of
Speaker 1: person I am, I would have. Yeah, especially in my
Speaker 1: early twenties, I've been like, what, you just want to
Speaker 1: get to know me more. This is great. I'm want
Speaker 1: to make it in this world. I think so. Um.
Speaker 1: The union president, who's a woman, thank god, Gabrielle Carteris,
Speaker 1: said in a press statement that the agreement will include
Speaker 1: meaningful increases in wages and residual rates that will put
Speaker 1: real money in members pockets. But in the wake of
Speaker 1: the meat too movement, the casting couch culture would also
Speaker 1: be amended. UH. The agreement now reflects important new language
Speaker 1: limiting auditions or meetings in private hotel rooms and residences,
Speaker 1: which represents a partial realization of our work toward industry
Speaker 1: culture change. UM. This agreement is going to go into
Speaker 1: effect almost immediately, goes into effect in July, and obviously
Speaker 1: comes after a global reckoning against workplace sexual misconduct. This
Speaker 1: is great. I actually didn't even know about this, and
Speaker 1: usually I'm pretty up to date with entertainment business stuff.
Speaker 1: I love this. It's I think it's good to have
Speaker 1: some good news on here sometimes and just like it's
Speaker 1: a heads up. I know there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry UM or aspiring actors or comedians whoever,
Speaker 1: who listened to the podcast, like if something feels fishy,
Speaker 1: it probably is just because someone And it's like, so
Speaker 1: these these people are going to dangle something over you
Speaker 1: and you're never gonna get it anyway, So even if
Speaker 1: you do suck their day exactly. So it's like, you
Speaker 1: know what it's like, you know what's worse than not
Speaker 1: getting a role? Not getting a role and also having
Speaker 1: sucked in your mouth. Gross, I got calling my mouth
Speaker 1: and I didn't get the part. This day sucks. Yep,
Speaker 1: your day would really take a turn. Hey, and you
Speaker 1: might need to turn to talk Space. Today's show sponsored
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Speaker 1: g w F. Come see us live, you guys. These
Speaker 1: are the cities that crit and I are going to
Speaker 1: be taking the Bridget Bishop Tour too. Okay, we have
Speaker 1: more in line, but just so you guys know, and
Speaker 1: and all these ticket links you could find. It's sorry
Speaker 1: about last Night Comedy dot Com slash tours. If the
Speaker 1: ticket link isn't in there yet, that means it's not up,
Speaker 1: and so you know we'll put it in. But Seattle, Washington,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be at you July twelve, Irvine, California. We're
Speaker 1: at the Irvine Improv July. This is our only l
Speaker 1: A area ish date, so a lot of shows here.
Speaker 1: We're staying in Los Angeles for the duration of these shows,
Speaker 1: so if we can make the commute, you can to
Speaker 1: other cities. We're gonna be coming too soon. Washington, d C, Philadelphia, Dallas,
Speaker 1: Texas specifically Addison and Atlanta, Georgia. That's going to be
Speaker 1: in October. Again, sorry about last Night Comedy dot Com
Speaker 1: slash Tours. You can join our email list to the website.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll send you an email. We never, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think we've only done one mass email so far
Speaker 1: in our days of doing this, so you know we're
Speaker 1: not gonna bug you. Yes, absolutely, And then for me personally, Uh,
Speaker 1: The last ever Nacho Bitches is happening in New York
Speaker 1: City on Friday, July shows at eleven thirty pm at
Speaker 1: York Comedy Club as always tickets or twelve dollars with
Speaker 1: code Nacho again. This is the last show ever. I
Speaker 1: saw people talking on Instagram like on my moving to
Speaker 1: l A. You know I'm not moving to l A.
Speaker 1: I'm just not doing Nacho bitches anymore. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: concentrate on some other stuff and I'm gonna be on
Speaker 1: the d L for a while as far as live appearances,
Speaker 1: but you can always hear me obviously on this podcast.
Speaker 1: And then Two Less Lonely Girls, the podcast I do
Speaker 1: with rosebud Baker about Justin Bieber and celebrity It's my
Speaker 1: little baby. It's really like improved my mental health greatly
Speaker 1: doing that, So I would really appreciate if you would
Speaker 1: hit subscribe, uh listen to that rate review, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: thank you so much to stitch Fix for sponsoring today's
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. Regardless of your style, it can
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Speaker 1: far as wardrobe, it is not good the outfits that
Speaker 1: people wear in the summer, like unless you're like a
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Speaker 1: really just trying to work. Work on that a little bit.
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Speaker 1: and uh enjoy your summer. Yeah alright, Oh, we have
Speaker 1: a very exciting announcement. This is so exciting. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited about that, very pumped. I know. A couple months
Speaker 1: ago we asked for some interns and we were very
Speaker 1: fucking vague and mysterious and created about it. Um. It
Speaker 1: was because we really didn't know what we're doing. But
Speaker 1: we've been doing this podcast for a long time now,
Speaker 1: and I think we've both felt that maybe it's time
Speaker 1: to kind of take it to the next level in
Speaker 1: some ways, not only just like try a new venture, um,
Speaker 1: but also to expand upon like the original message. I know,
Speaker 1: I personally get frustrated a lot um with maybe like
Speaker 1: how the message of this podcast is interpreted, and it's
Speaker 1: certainly not so to be heavy handed. I do not
Speaker 1: consider myself to be an activist. This is not a
Speaker 1: journey that I took. I didn't come out with some
Speaker 1: major purpose, but like the podcast has turned into what
Speaker 1: it is. We get really serious at times, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes it's frustrating when you know, we go out on
Speaker 1: the road and people just think it's like about dick sucking.
Speaker 1: I mean, dick sucking is its great is a part
Speaker 1: of it, but you know what, another part of it
Speaker 1: is being a good person and getting off your ass
Speaker 1: and helping out fellow human beings and being an active
Speaker 1: citizen in the world right And I think it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of you know, people listen
Speaker 1: to who like you, like to go out and have
Speaker 1: a good time and drinking party and like me too.
Speaker 1: I fucking love that we both love going out. It's
Speaker 1: so fun. Um, but there are you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on in the world, and I think if
Speaker 1: we all did a little bit, the world would be
Speaker 1: a much better place. And so we kind of just
Speaker 1: wanted to, you know, instead of complaining about it, like
Speaker 1: we want we want to be the change that we
Speaker 1: wish to see in the world. Because my mom gave
Speaker 1: me that man and I was like in college and
Speaker 1: then I keep looking at every time I get something
Speaker 1: out of a beer out of the refrigerator, and I'm
Speaker 1: like you know what, yeah, I do that um. And
Speaker 1: so you know a lot of times we're like, you know,
Speaker 1: get off your phone. A retweet is not going to help,
Speaker 1: you know everything, Every now and again a retweet helps,
Speaker 1: but like really like either you have to be doing
Speaker 1: acts of service or donating or you know, running for
Speaker 1: that office, yes, exactly, doing something active and and and
Speaker 1: not just being like, well, I I bought this notebook
Speaker 1: and ten percent of it goes to stopping rapes. So like, wow,
Speaker 1: what a hero, you know, I did it? Such a hero.
Speaker 1: So we came up with a day where you get
Speaker 1: off your phone and you go and you do something
Speaker 1: and you sign up for to volunteer or to donate
Speaker 1: to a local organization. And we decided to start with
Speaker 1: something that's really like New York City sound trick Um,
Speaker 1: which is not just because we're obsessed with New York City,
Speaker 1: but it's because it's like, you know, it's like for
Speaker 1: people who are coming here in person, it's really like
Speaker 1: you see chain age when you start very locally and
Speaker 1: then branch out. And we talked to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: We had the most amazing response to our and we
Speaker 1: have the most talented listen to my god, graphic designers, videographers, photography,
Speaker 1: or well versed in like the nonprofitsmicon like booths and
Speaker 1: ship So okay, So Saturday, August eighteen, in Brooklyn, we
Speaker 1: are having the first ever gu guys we Fest. Oh
Speaker 1: my God. Shout out to Tyler in turn for thinking
Speaker 1: of that title. So good. Guys we Fest is going
Speaker 1: to be during the day. It's going to be at
Speaker 1: the same venue. It's Brooklyn Studios in downtown Brooklyn, but
Speaker 1: it's b r kel K b k l A k
Speaker 1: l y. Yeah, it's like the big Bickland Studios. So
Speaker 1: during the day, guys we Fest is going to this beautiful,
Speaker 1: amazing venue that we just signed the contract for him,
Speaker 1: so fucking excited. We're gonna have booth set up and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have organizations that will have information and va
Speaker 1: blunteers sign ups. You can go to guys we Fest
Speaker 1: during the day and you could sign up for a charity,
Speaker 1: you could sign up to volunteer and actually take action.
Speaker 1: And they're also gonna be really fun things. They're like puppies,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have fucking food and there's gonna be
Speaker 1: We're trying, We're we're in the process of getting all
Speaker 1: these booths together and and UM and our amazing fleet
Speaker 1: of volunteers is wrangling a lot of fun shit, a
Speaker 1: lot of important ship mental healthcare O, B G I
Speaker 1: N care, like just a lot of care. You can
Speaker 1: get an s T I test hopefully. Yeah, we're working
Speaker 1: all these things up, Like this is kind of the
Speaker 1: concept that we're working on. And we have a huge
Speaker 1: team working with us, all completely listener supported UM and so.
Speaker 1: And then if you're not if you don't live in
Speaker 1: York City, or if you can't make it to guys
Speaker 1: We Fest, you can still be a part of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have t shirts that will put the link
Speaker 1: to And that's like because everyone's constantly saying, like, how
Speaker 1: can we support the podcast? We are so fortunate the
Speaker 1: podcast is great. And what you can do is support
Speaker 1: these organizations that we love and that we've put the
Speaker 1: spot light on. UM and Christine and I each chose
Speaker 1: a charity and fifty of the profit complete. We're not
Speaker 1: making any muff. Everyone is volunteering. UM we have this organization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have everything donated. So my half is going to
Speaker 1: go to what a surprise New Alternatives who I Love,
Speaker 1: which again is an l g B t Q center
Speaker 1: for at risk youth. They provide mental health care, STI testing,
Speaker 1: job training so much and I've I've seen this this
Speaker 1: charity growth so much and their local and they're small
Speaker 1: and like the money goes directly to the clients, which
Speaker 1: I think is so phenomenal. And Uh, the other fifty
Speaker 1: percent of proceeds is going to be going to the
Speaker 1: Reproductive Health Access Project. If you've heard our interview with
Speaker 1: Dr Linda prine Um, she is an amazing woman who
Speaker 1: belongs to this organization. I'm so happy, Uh, Lady Parts
Speaker 1: Justice was one of the main reasons why I knew
Speaker 1: this organization existed. But their mission is to train and
Speaker 1: support clinicians to make reproductive healthcare accessible to everybody and
Speaker 1: their folkses. Areas of focus are on abortion, contraception, and miscarriages.
Speaker 1: And they're making a world a better place by going
Speaker 1: to areas and people who need this type of healthcare
Speaker 1: who couldn't afford it otherwise. So they're doing amazing work.
Speaker 1: So all these T shirts and that we're gonna be selling,
Speaker 1: all the profits are going half to New Alternatives have
Speaker 1: to the Reproductive Health Access Project, um, and we are
Speaker 1: very excited. And then during the day is going to
Speaker 1: be like it's fair. There's gonna be talks like comic
Speaker 1: Con for like the most badass bitches, but it's not
Speaker 1: gender specific, like we worked, we're working really hard to
Speaker 1: make this not like just a gal's day, Like we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring your boyfriends. We're gonna do a live episode
Speaker 1: of Guys We Fucked at Guys we Fest, which we
Speaker 1: never we like so rarely do that. It might be
Speaker 1: our last ever live maybe not, but like we never
Speaker 1: do that. We never did. And at night it is
Speaker 1: going to be the night portion of this is going
Speaker 1: to be twenty one and up because it's gonna be alcohol.
Speaker 1: Yeah we really we tried, but literally, well there's no
Speaker 1: late way to legally do it where we aren't re
Speaker 1: responsible ship ye. And so we're gonna have We're gonna
Speaker 1: put on a show when we're gonna have comedians, musicians,
Speaker 1: drag performers, uh, some of the best people in the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry. And it's gonna be a fucking blowout show.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be fucking nuts and uh, we'll have risk
Speaker 1: bands for the day ristbands for just the night or
Speaker 1: an all access pass that you have to be twenty
Speaker 1: one to get, and UM so happy, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: about this. And so you can follow um all the
Speaker 1: social media for guys we Fest. On Instagram, it's at
Speaker 1: guys we Fest. On Twitter, It's at guys we Fest.
Speaker 1: And then if you go to sorry about last Night
Speaker 1: Comedy dot com, you'll see you can click on the
Speaker 1: guys we Fest page and get more information pricing, timing,
Speaker 1: all that kinds of stuff, and there'll be ways that
Speaker 1: you can, you know, donate and participate even if you're
Speaker 1: not able to make it New York to New York
Speaker 1: City on Saturday, August eighteenth. But we're really excited about this.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a new thing in the direction
Speaker 1: that we're kind of towards, heading towards and like getting
Speaker 1: up your assets. Like we've been podcasting, we've talked about everything,
Speaker 1: and we'll continue to talk about everything, but now we
Speaker 1: also need to incorporate doing things UM and because we've
Speaker 1: been very fortunate, so it's time to uh kind of
Speaker 1: pass that along to other people in our community. Very
Speaker 1: exciting about that, UM, So stay tuned and make sure
Speaker 1: to follow on the social media because we'll be announcing
Speaker 1: things first on social media, and people on social media
Speaker 1: definitely will have like faster access to stuff. Um, so
Speaker 1: we have an email today. This one is very interesting.
Speaker 1: I think fitting for a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: were discussing later in today's episode and said yes it's
Speaker 1: okay to break up with a good man. Hikerin and Christina,
Speaker 1: I have been wanting to write in for a while
Speaker 1: now to express my thanks to you and your podcast
Speaker 1: for helping to improve my life. Prior to listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast, I had never heard female speak about sex
Speaker 1: so openly and more importantly, shamelessly. Your openness and shame
Speaker 1: free attitur attitude at a toward towards sex helps me
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable and confident about sex in my relationship
Speaker 1: with my boyfriend. Listening to all your conversations which with
Speaker 1: each other and various guests, and the advice you would
Speaker 1: give to listen is also contributed to building my confidence
Speaker 1: to end my seven and a half year relationship with
Speaker 1: my boyfriend because I was not truly happy listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I have always really related to Christina. I
Speaker 1: grew up as a people pleaser who often puts others
Speaker 1: needs before my own and has difficulty identifying and expressing
Speaker 1: what my needs are, which is something that I'm working on.
Speaker 1: Similar to Christina, my long term, committed relationship with my
Speaker 1: boyfriend began in my early twenties. I turned thirty last year.
Speaker 1: We were living together, and I moved out a few
Speaker 1: days before you released the breakup episode. As I mentioned
Speaker 1: at the beginning of my email, I've been wanting to
Speaker 1: email for a while to thank you, But what has
Speaker 1: finally motivated me to actually do so is that I
Speaker 1: recently came across an article that I thought you or
Speaker 1: other fucker's might find useful, called Yes It's Okay to
Speaker 1: break up with a good Man. I think the whole
Speaker 1: piece is fantastic, but the three quotes that really resonated
Speaker 1: with me and summarized the crux of the article are below.
Speaker 1: Uh Number one is I wish someone had told me
Speaker 1: when I was much younger that I didn't have to
Speaker 1: have an airtight legal case for a breakup. All I
Speaker 1: had to have was a desire to no longer be
Speaker 1: in that relationship. The second one is you can break
Speaker 1: up with someone for any reason or no reason at all.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have a quote good reason to
Speaker 1: end a relationship. And the third one is when women partnerships.
Speaker 1: It seems that the emotion we feel, perhaps more acutely
Speaker 1: than the eviscerating grief of love lost, is the guilt
Speaker 1: of having pushed it away. The article also includes an
Speaker 1: excerpt from a piece written by Cheryl Strayed at a
Speaker 1: Hope I'm pronouncing that right, author of wild Um, which
Speaker 1: is also very poignant the truth that lives there Um,
Speaker 1: I'll raid the piece. It's short. Go even though you
Speaker 1: love him, Go even though he's kind and faithful and
Speaker 1: dear to you. Go even though he's your best friend
Speaker 1: and you're his. Go even though you can't imagine your
Speaker 1: life without him. Go even though he adores you and
Speaker 1: you're leaving will devastate him. Go even though your friends
Speaker 1: will be disappointed or surprised, or piste off, or three
Speaker 1: or all three. Even though you once said you would stay,
Speaker 1: Go even though you're afraid of being alone. Go even
Speaker 1: though you're sure no one will ever love you as
Speaker 1: well as he does. Go even though there is nowhere
Speaker 1: to go. Go even though you don't know exactly why
Speaker 1: you can't stay. Go because you want to because wanting
Speaker 1: to leave is enough. Um. And she goes on, But
Speaker 1: I just thought the quotes and the pieces that she
Speaker 1: kind of like, this was a really well thought out email,
Speaker 1: and I thought like, regardless of how it relates to
Speaker 1: either of us, I just think this is an important
Speaker 1: thing to pass on to a lot of listeners. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of you guys kind of emailed us
Speaker 1: after the breakup episode and we're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever your thoughts about it. A lot of you did
Speaker 1: make it about you. That's fine, um, But I know
Speaker 1: we were feeling a lot of feelings that after that episode.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we really revisited a ton since
Speaker 1: then because it was a lot to sit with. And
Speaker 1: you know, as the podcast gets more and more popular,
Speaker 1: these things are very hard to deal with in a
Speaker 1: public setting. We are we're still human beings. UM. But
Speaker 1: I love the kind of thought of like. I just like,
Speaker 1: and I actually know there's another friend that we both
Speaker 1: have who recently ends in a relationship with like a
Speaker 1: good guy, And I know she felt a lot of
Speaker 1: guilt about doing that, and there was no real reason
Speaker 1: that she felt. She was like, I'm just not into him.
Speaker 1: Anymore and like that's okay, we overtook her. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: feel so much guilt as women, uh for someone who
Speaker 1: on paper is a good guy or someone who, like
Speaker 1: you know, our friends is like the guy that they
Speaker 1: are friends wish they had. But it's like, you are
Speaker 1: live your life and if you're not happy and if
Speaker 1: it's not doing and if you're sitting there questioning, like
Speaker 1: that's not the right relationship for you, and it's always, always,
Speaker 1: always better to be alone. It really is. I can't
Speaker 1: say it enough. It's not a bad thing. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying like don't don't look for love or don't
Speaker 1: care about love. Yeah, but it's just like live your life,
Speaker 1: and it really like it's like having a relationship is
Speaker 1: a treat and it can be something that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: just because for me personally, it's not on my like
Speaker 1: must have the list, as I've said, but like, and
Speaker 1: if it is on your must have there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: or anti feminist about that, But it's like, just don't
Speaker 1: I just see so many people wasting their whole life
Speaker 1: looking for someone who may or may not exist, and
Speaker 1: it drives me fucking crazy. There's so much good to
Speaker 1: do in the world alone or with somebody else. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that directly relates to what I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty to see why I speak your I could
Speaker 1: speak to you even without speaking to you. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get sad. Um So, just an update, personal update
Speaker 1: that and realizations that I've been going through lately that
Speaker 1: I that hopefully will help people. Um. So, I basically
Speaker 1: have been fucking this dude since I broke up with Stephen,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize this until he broke it off recently,
Speaker 1: like right before we interview this week's guest. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: terrible timing on my part because I shouldn't have done
Speaker 1: that talked to him about it anyway. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been fucking this guy, and I've been doing things
Speaker 1: with him that I've never done with anybody before, like
Speaker 1: a phone sex, sending audio clips of me coming, or sexting,
Speaker 1: or sending naked photos. And it's very all, very very fun.
Speaker 1: But since he was like I, basically what happened is
Speaker 1: we have been sucking, fucking, fucking. I had told him
Speaker 1: right before our guests came over Wednesday, Uh, that I
Speaker 1: liked him and that I was kind of getting nervous
Speaker 1: about that, and I knew that I had an inkling
Speaker 1: in my head that that was gonna make him go cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm out, not in an unkind way, but in a way,
Speaker 1: and deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down, very deep,
Speaker 1: I knew that I really needed that. Uh Um. I
Speaker 1: have not been in a good place the past week.
Speaker 1: And Stephen came over to get the cable box couple
Speaker 1: days ago whatever, and I saw that interaction was not good.
Speaker 1: Brief but not good. That sent me into a neither
Speaker 1: deeper even deeper spiral. And then this guy that I
Speaker 1: had been fucking, he came over the night before we
Speaker 1: did these interviews and we talked for hours and we fucked,
Speaker 1: and then we talked for more hours and I was
Speaker 1: like wow. And then I always walked him down to
Speaker 1: the get a cab after and I just I feel
Speaker 1: myself and I noticed it now, just getting so giddy
Speaker 1: about him, and and I really when he when I
Speaker 1: when I texted him, hey like I'm kind of getting nervous.
Speaker 1: Basically what I said, it's like, I'm getting a little
Speaker 1: nervous because I think I like you too much. And
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I did that. I was debating. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a person who likes to be in
Speaker 1: control over things. If I wanted to maintain control over this,
Speaker 1: you know, feel some sense of control over this casual
Speaker 1: sex relationship, I would just either end it myself on
Speaker 1: my terms, because then I won't be rejected and I
Speaker 1: won't feel like shit and I won't be but hurt
Speaker 1: or or I just don't tell him and shove those
Speaker 1: feelings down and keep fucking and have every you know.
Speaker 1: So I told him, and then he we texted and
Speaker 1: he talked and you know the matter exactly what he said.
Speaker 1: But uh, he was very kind. He's a very great guy.
Speaker 1: But I have been building him up to myself, to
Speaker 1: you too, the couple of people that I've told as
Speaker 1: this the most amazing man with the This is mean
Speaker 1: and I don't. I do want to interview him one
Speaker 1: day on the podcast. I really do, because I think
Speaker 1: he's a great dude. Yeah, I mean, I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is uncomfortable for me to because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be mean towards him. It's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a tight but he I made his cock.
Speaker 1: I tricked myself into believing that his cock was the
Speaker 1: best ca that anybody has ever had in the world,
Speaker 1: like the antidote to all your to all your ailments.
Speaker 1: I would say, and this is I and I think
Speaker 1: this is this is certainly a thing I do, and
Speaker 1: I think this is a lot of the thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of young women do, where you build someone up.
Speaker 1: I do this all the fucking time, and I'm so
Speaker 1: sick of it, but you build a person up. When
Speaker 1: I first met Stephen, I was like, we had brunch,
Speaker 1: like that's my husband, you know, And I do this thing.
Speaker 1: I put these men on these pedestals and it's so
Speaker 1: fucking stupid, and I make it out like they are
Speaker 1: the best things since slice spread. Now that granted, the
Speaker 1: sex that I had with him was amazing. He's a
Speaker 1: great sexual partner. I think the way he communicates is
Speaker 1: is great. It was great. I would, by no means
Speaker 1: say that this was the most amazing, incredible sex I've
Speaker 1: ever had in my life. It was eye opening and
Speaker 1: I did new things and that was really cool. But
Speaker 1: I am looking back into the ways that I just
Speaker 1: made his dick the best thing in the world, and
Speaker 1: it what it did was distracted me from really going
Speaker 1: through the pain of a breakup. And when he did that,
Speaker 1: when he was like, hey, you know, I'm not that
Speaker 1: serious about you, and he told me he was seeing
Speaker 1: somebody else and that he likes and he wasn't only
Speaker 1: day to comic and all these reasons that it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He's very nice about it. But you know, I felt
Speaker 1: what he was saying that to me on the phone.
Speaker 1: I felt my heart break, but it wasn't for him.
Speaker 1: I feel like I felt my heart break for the
Speaker 1: first time because for the first time since I met
Speaker 1: Stephen seven over seven years ago, I am now now
Speaker 1: I'm alone, and now I have to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And now I don't have a boy to be excited about,
Speaker 1: even if it's just a fun buddy, I don't have
Speaker 1: a boy to be excited about. And god damn it,
Speaker 1: did I use that as a distraction to avoid my feelings. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I've been sitting with the alone thing for
Speaker 1: the past five days, and I don't I'm not obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm someone my mom has had multiple suicide tempts, and
Speaker 1: so I'm very comfortable talking about suicide. I've never actually
Speaker 1: I just feel this sort of emptiness that and it's
Speaker 1: not because of the guy, and it's not because of Stephen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but I have been
Speaker 1: like I've never thought specifically how I would kill myself before,
Speaker 1: but just lying in bed, and it was in a
Speaker 1: way it was comforting because I just wanted to go
Speaker 1: there in my head, just to just go there. It's
Speaker 1: just playing pretend in my head and like, just man,
Speaker 1: when when you left that day, Karen, basically this guest
Speaker 1: that we have on this week's episode, thirty minutes before
Speaker 1: she was supposed to come home or this is when
Speaker 1: I had this phone call with this dude, and uh,
Speaker 1: he asked me if I could talk. I said yes,
Speaker 1: because I'm a fucking idiot and and because I always
Speaker 1: I wanted to get it over with but it was
Speaker 1: bad timing, but um, and then he said the thing
Speaker 1: and then I ran outside to have a panic attack
Speaker 1: and smoke a cigarette, and then our guests with her
Speaker 1: partner came and I'm like fuck. And then like she
Speaker 1: was approaching the door, I'm like, hey, Amanda, and she
Speaker 1: like I kind of freaked her out because I think
Speaker 1: I said it really like I'm okay. And when you
Speaker 1: find out which Amanda is you're going to be like
Speaker 1: whoa now yeah, um and uh. And then right before
Speaker 1: we started recording, I was like, hey, cringe, just so
Speaker 1: you know this. I just had a phone call and
Speaker 1: then shattered my heart into a million pieces and I
Speaker 1: wanted to die. So she literally whispered that to me,
Speaker 1: like as our amah and I was like, oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then we did that interview, and then
Speaker 1: then I just bawled my face out. But and then
Speaker 1: then we interviewed Tim Dillon and uh, and then when
Speaker 1: you left, I wow, I don't think i've ever I
Speaker 1: don't even know what it is. It's like this feeling
Speaker 1: of loneliness that and realization that I need to be
Speaker 1: crazy over something that isn't a boy, and how I've
Speaker 1: always been boy crazy and it's always been a a distraction.
Speaker 1: It's always a distraction from feeling, from going through the
Speaker 1: emotions and feeling the actual feelings that I need to feel.
Speaker 1: And and it's really interesting and kind of comforting to
Speaker 1: know that I'm not this sad. I would have been
Speaker 1: pretty disappointed myself if I was this sad over this guy,
Speaker 1: I was fucking I mean, Jesus Christ's it's not that
Speaker 1: it wasn't that fucking god. Um, but I I have
Speaker 1: been feeling the feelings of just a very it's a
Speaker 1: depressed I don't even want to call it a depression.
Speaker 1: It's just something that I need to go through, something
Speaker 1: that i've I've swept under the rug like ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and I just need to feel it. And I and
Speaker 1: I have cried the past couple of days. I have
Speaker 1: cried in a way it surmounts any ugly cry that
Speaker 1: you could ever think of anybody ever doing. Like I
Speaker 1: have been drooling all over myself, sobbing like a like
Speaker 1: a toddler, like a like a kid. And and one
Speaker 1: thing you had said to me before you left that
Speaker 1: day was like, you just need to like cry and
Speaker 1: feel it and just cry. And I've been crying for
Speaker 1: the past five days. I don't even know what about anymore,
Speaker 1: but just wailing to the point where if anybody heard me,
Speaker 1: I feel like they'd call the cops because I just
Speaker 1: had to. I had to like put my mouth against
Speaker 1: my pillow and just scream for hours and hours and
Speaker 1: hours and and it's, uh, it really it sucks. But um,
Speaker 1: I feel like every day I wake up and I
Speaker 1: want to be here a little bit more. And and
Speaker 1: it is weird to feel like you want to die
Speaker 1: when you have so many amazing things in your life
Speaker 1: and you go, I don't even care, And that makes
Speaker 1: me feel even worse, which is I think a mistake
Speaker 1: a lot of people make, is like they use that
Speaker 1: as well. You should be happy because you have X,
Speaker 1: y Z, you've accomplished all these things, you've done these
Speaker 1: great things. But when you when you're still when you
Speaker 1: still want to exit the planet despite all of that,
Speaker 1: that feeling that is like a darkness that I have
Speaker 1: never I feel like I've I've protected that corner of
Speaker 1: my soul since I was a kid, and for the
Speaker 1: first time, I'm going there and it's it's it's necessary. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just yeah, I don't know. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about that and let that out and get
Speaker 1: that out and throw that out there in case you
Speaker 1: are also protecting a corner of yourself that you should explore,
Speaker 1: because yeah, we also had talked about though, UM, I
Speaker 1: think on the same day the difference between like actually
Speaker 1: being suicidal and wanting to die, because I think they're
Speaker 1: very two, very separate feelings. And um, I've never been suicidal,
Speaker 1: but they're there. I definitely wanted to, like not be
Speaker 1: alive anymore, but there, and those are two things. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've never thought of ways to do it before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that freaked me out, but everyone has that's very normal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I've never just gone there, mandan I don't have,
Speaker 1: but yeah, no, no, no, And I think I think,
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing. It's important to be able
Speaker 1: to to talk about suicide without everyone then flooding our
Speaker 1: inbox being like, oh my god, here's a phone number. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the phone numbers. It's not it's like not helpful,
Speaker 1: but I think it's like, because there's such a stigma
Speaker 1: on like you know, depression and like mental health, I
Speaker 1: think it's very helpful. I think it's very helpful when
Speaker 1: I hear people say like I want to I want
Speaker 1: to die, or I feel like I want to die,
Speaker 1: or I feel like there's nothing left to live for,
Speaker 1: because I think that's very much a part of the
Speaker 1: human process. I think it's a very normal. And I
Speaker 1: almost question, I almost question someone who always thinks life
Speaker 1: as a gift, not not. I almost questioned, I question
Speaker 1: someone who always thinks life is a gift. Um, I
Speaker 1: never I don't know. I feel like I don't think
Speaker 1: guest life's a gift. I don't I don't think about
Speaker 1: it like that. But I have never wanted to die before. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, but like when you think about what life
Speaker 1: and I've just trying to write a joke about this,
Speaker 1: but like life is like a forced gift that you
Speaker 1: can't return. So it's like someone gave you a sweater
Speaker 1: and you're like, maybe I'll think of a place to
Speaker 1: wear this sweater too, but I don't really like it.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, it's always fucking hanging in your closet.
Speaker 1: And then a lot of times you look at it
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, this is kind of wasteful if
Speaker 1: I don't put this sweater on somehow, you know, there's
Speaker 1: cold people in the world that could use this sweater.
Speaker 1: So that's how I think about life a lot, and
Speaker 1: I really try to make the best of it. But
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of the reason that I don't
Speaker 1: want to have kids, it's not because I don't like kids,
Speaker 1: but it's because like I haven't figured out how to
Speaker 1: I haven't figured out whether or not I like life yet,
Speaker 1: And so I don't think it's fair for me to
Speaker 1: bring somebody else into the world to go through that.
Speaker 1: And I know it's a very human experience kind of
Speaker 1: figure out your purpose and stuff. I feel very secure
Speaker 1: that I know what my purposes, but it's like I've
Speaker 1: done all this work and we have all this success,
Speaker 1: and then it's just like, but what is it again?
Speaker 1: It goes back to that to the email that listener
Speaker 1: wrote us um her name's Katrina about the it's okay
Speaker 1: to break up with a good man because it's the
Speaker 1: same as like with this man on paper is great,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, life is great, and like our lives look
Speaker 1: great on paper, but that doesn't mean that we're not
Speaker 1: still going through these very human experiences and feeling great
Speaker 1: pain and disappointment and that you feel that at every
Speaker 1: level in your life. And money doesn't change that, and
Speaker 1: success doesn't change that. Sometimes it makes it harder because
Speaker 1: you can't know who your real friends are. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: also I think it also makes it harder because because
Speaker 1: you have all these amazing things that people would kill
Speaker 1: for or that that you've dreamt of since you're a
Speaker 1: little girl, and to be sad despite that is scary.
Speaker 1: It's scary because you're like this is this didn't help me,
Speaker 1: and then you also, on top of it, feel ungrateful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm somebody who feel I'm so grateful for so
Speaker 1: many things, but I just feel I feel very numb
Speaker 1: and I feel um. But you know, I've been talking
Speaker 1: a lot. I was texting last night Justy Dodge, Um,
Speaker 1: who's who was uh, you know, gone through these emotions before.
Speaker 1: And she was great to text with because she she
Speaker 1: was literally like, you're gonna kill yourself tonight? Just can
Speaker 1: you just let me know if you're gonna kill yourself?
Speaker 1: Because then I love just worry about you. I love
Speaker 1: watch friends on your teeth. You know she was. She
Speaker 1: handled it like the best way ever, but um, you
Speaker 1: know it was. I really was appreciative that she wasn't like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'll come over, do you know anything.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, that's gonna make it worse, because I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about this, Like Wendy Starling and
Speaker 1: I went to this. Um it's like a UCB do
Speaker 1: Close marathon after party or whatever. I'm somebody who wears
Speaker 1: my emotions on my sleeve. I cannot not talk about
Speaker 1: something even if it's with a total stranger. And we
Speaker 1: both went to, um this bar McManus, that's uh, you
Speaker 1: know you frequent that bar a lot and uh a
Speaker 1: lot of people. And we were I was talking as
Speaker 1: guy Sean who you know, um, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I want to kill myself, and I was just talking
Speaker 1: it out and then we were yeah nice yeah, um
Speaker 1: and and I was just being very honest about that
Speaker 1: and uh, because I just wanted to get it out
Speaker 1: of my body. And and we had this great conversation.
Speaker 1: Was like, you know, we all want to kill ourselves
Speaker 1: sometimes you're not original christ Yeah, yeah, well that's very humbling.
Speaker 1: And then fucking, oh my god, this this guy who's
Speaker 1: a his name is Jason Manzucas. He's a he's an
Speaker 1: actor and an improviser. And so many of my friends
Speaker 1: are madly in love with my old roommate. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I was like her number one, Yeah, crush, you still
Speaker 1: want to get them together? Three people? I know if
Speaker 1: he is their number one question? Like that's so specific,
Speaker 1: and it's like a comedy nerd kind of guy because
Speaker 1: everybody knows who he is. But he's great, he's wonderful,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I was talking and we talked to
Speaker 1: him and I talked before because he talked about you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's listening to the podcast and he's like, hey, how
Speaker 1: are you. I'm like, I want to die and he's
Speaker 1: like okay, and then he's like, you know, I forget.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I broke up with my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: goes Stephen. I'm like yeah, Stephen, yeah, I like. But
Speaker 1: then he and I was just saying how I was
Speaker 1: basically said kind of all the things that I just
Speaker 1: said to Jason, who doesn't know me at all, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, there's all my baggage. And he
Speaker 1: really he like, he gave me the best motivational talk
Speaker 1: in the world and it was really nice. But you know,
Speaker 1: talking if you feel these things, you're definitely not alone.
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you, girl or boy or undecided
Speaker 1: or whoever you are. UM and I think it's very
Speaker 1: human to have these feelings, and I think talking about
Speaker 1: them if you're a person who is social, I think
Speaker 1: one thing that is saved my life is going out
Speaker 1: and just telling complete strangers. I know, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a good way to start a conversation. But I don't
Speaker 1: care and that's why comedy is so important, and that's
Speaker 1: why you know, like things like Nanette are so aggravating,
Speaker 1: because it's like to make to have to say that
Speaker 1: you feel suicidal and have someone respond comedically to me
Speaker 1: is the the most cathartic thing in the world, the
Speaker 1: best thing in the world, because the same thing. So
Speaker 1: when I went ages ago during the Frank breakup, we
Speaker 1: I went to see a UCB show again and uh,
Speaker 1: someone like picked me out. The host put me out
Speaker 1: of the crowd to do crowd work, and he's something
Speaker 1: about my breakup and then he goes blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and then he is like, no one cares. He said,
Speaker 1: no one cares, And like, to this day, that's the
Speaker 1: most helpful and I've talked about a multiple times. It's
Speaker 1: the most helpful thing anyone ever said to me, is
Speaker 1: nobody cares, because then that kind of really forces you
Speaker 1: to deal with it in your by yourself, but not
Speaker 1: a bad way, in a good way. Every time, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm having a real hard time being alone in my apartment.
Speaker 1: It's a huge apartment, and when it's just me, I
Speaker 1: just feel, I don't know, I just feel. And there's
Speaker 1: so many Stephen had so much shit that it's all
Speaker 1: moved out, so it's even it feels just even bigger.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a castle, even though it's
Speaker 1: nowhere near the big but for New York City standards,
Speaker 1: I guess. And I've been occupying my time and just
Speaker 1: trying to be out of my apartment. But at the
Speaker 1: moment always comes after go home and be alone, and
Speaker 1: and every night for the past week, I've just been
Speaker 1: bawling myself to sleep. But it's it feels good. I
Speaker 1: feel a lot better and I feel a little less numb,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it's sadness is very humbling, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in a necessary way, and I never and
Speaker 1: I'm just realizing all these things about myself. One how
Speaker 1: I put boys on pedestals and I make them out
Speaker 1: to be so much better than that to a lot
Speaker 1: of people that you like. You like to see the
Speaker 1: best in people, but it's to an extreme that is
Speaker 1: so unhealthy. But with the guy thing, it's I do
Speaker 1: that because oh my god, let's focus on this thing
Speaker 1: and magnify it a hundred times so that I don't
Speaker 1: even have to go to all the sad places in
Speaker 1: my head. And the honest places in my head that
Speaker 1: I have to be honest with myself about and it's
Speaker 1: important work, so do it. But but I so I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's interesting because to me, like
Speaker 1: the immediately after the breakup, when you were like kind
Speaker 1: of like having like what seemed like too much fun,
Speaker 1: I would say like that was more worried, Like this
Speaker 1: to me is not worrisome like now, and I know
Speaker 1: it seems more worrisome because you're crying a lot, but
Speaker 1: like to me, I'm like, no, this is this is
Speaker 1: exactly the other stuff to me was like uh, what
Speaker 1: are you not gonna handle this? Or like that's truly
Speaker 1: how I felt because I was like that was worrisome.
Speaker 1: This to me, I was like, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is great And it's hard to tell someone it's great
Speaker 1: to sit that. I'm like, you know, to tell you
Speaker 1: for six months that you're gonna cry and feel like ship,
Speaker 1: you're right and it feels great. But it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm like that's like it's just it's so you know,
Speaker 1: and like it's like so it's like a million people
Speaker 1: will tell you doing your break up like oh, it's
Speaker 1: gonna get so much better and you can't understand it
Speaker 1: at the time. Do you not understand that at all?
Speaker 1: But then you're gonna be like, oh, I feel so
Speaker 1: much better, and like I feel like on top of
Speaker 1: feeling better, you're gonna I this is my what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna My guess is that you're gonna feel like even
Speaker 1: more of a complete person. I'm finally taking care of
Speaker 1: myself emotionally after never doing that. Yeah, I never do that.
Speaker 1: But even though you've focused on the positive and the
Speaker 1: you know, you've gone to therapy before, you feel like
Speaker 1: you've never done any like emotion. Every time I go
Speaker 1: to therapy, I cry my eyes out, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm finally doing that, I guess because I've seen this
Speaker 1: therapist twice and I, you know, and I have been
Speaker 1: very honest. I'm popping adderalls to avoid feelings. I don't drinking.
Speaker 1: I'm drinking so much and I usually I have a
Speaker 1: rule for myself, I never drink when I'm sad. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason, the alcohol is making me feel a lot better,
Speaker 1: which is a little weird um and concerning and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's odd, it's kind of freaky because I,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not worried about the alcohol. The adderall is,
Speaker 1: I would well the adderall something. I was telling my
Speaker 1: my therapist that it's a drug that puts my feelings
Speaker 1: on hold and lets me do whatever empower through things.
Speaker 1: And it creates a sense of urgency and doesn't give
Speaker 1: your anxiety of a little bit. No, no, I mean
Speaker 1: I think I do have a little lady dish, So
Speaker 1: it doesn't helps you refocus. Actually sometimes it makes me calmer,
Speaker 1: but what it really does it's terrible for I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that drug is terrible, and you don't have
Speaker 1: some of the articles already know. Um. I think one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that drug for me, I like about
Speaker 1: it is because it makes me look at something bad
Speaker 1: and go, you know what, it'll be okay. And then
Speaker 1: that's all the work I do on it. And some
Speaker 1: things won't be okay, but they just never will be okay,
Speaker 1: and that's and that has to be okay exactly. Everything
Speaker 1: will not be okay. And that's why I hate once
Speaker 1: people say everything will be got because it probably won't.
Speaker 1: But like you'll get tasted anyway, I'll be okay. So
Speaker 1: so it's just that yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna bought
Speaker 1: the piano. That was such a good move. I've been
Speaker 1: planning that it's out of the piano me too. It's
Speaker 1: very nice, it's very yeah, it's very like it took
Speaker 1: it to the next level. Yeah, with the golden legs. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean I think that's just you know whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again this is a conversation more like jumping off
Speaker 1: point for yourself, not to we we're dealing. We're good.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it makes it harder to deal with things when
Speaker 1: you have a thousand other opinions coming in. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've just been drinking every night and acting
Speaker 1: like I'm a twenty one year old game man. I
Speaker 1: don't see me too, but I don't mind it. Well,
Speaker 1: I literally for the past two weeks. This is so crazy.
Speaker 1: But like I prescribed myself fun and it worked good,
Speaker 1: and I, like me never have fun. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just because like we're home, you know, we're working
Speaker 1: almost we're out of town like almost all summer, and
Speaker 1: I really am you know, I love meeting going to
Speaker 1: like new places and meeting new fuckers, but like I
Speaker 1: have a real problem, Like I really like being home
Speaker 1: with Alfred, Like in my apartment. UM, so what because
Speaker 1: of just so hard when you have this like tumultuous
Speaker 1: relationship with New York City and I'm like, very I'm
Speaker 1: deeply in love with New York City right now, and
Speaker 1: so like it's like leaving my husband is Leaving New
Speaker 1: York City is like leaving a husband that you like,
Speaker 1: are just in love with. Coming home to New York
Speaker 1: is like the best feeling in the um and other
Speaker 1: places are great, but that's not it. Um. But anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. UM. Now we'll move on to day's guests. Guys,
Speaker 1: this one's this one's a whammy. Uh. You've most likely
Speaker 1: read about Today's guests in a newspaper or online, or
Speaker 1: seeing the recent Netflix documentary about her. She is an
Speaker 1: American writer and activist who spent almost four years in
Speaker 1: an Italian prison along with her boyfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: accused of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kircher. The
Speaker 1: case caused international controversy, and an appeal ultimately found both
Speaker 1: her and the boyfriend, Rafael Selacito, not guilty. Please welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Amanda Knox. Oh, let me kiss you.
Speaker 1: I know you wanted to. Why you brought up a fire.
Speaker 1: You should turn out the line. You make me crazy.
Speaker 1: I won't call me baby. I'm pushing up, pushing still around.
Speaker 1: It's so lazy, but you amazed me. I can't believe
Speaker 1: what I file. I'm a deep you don't call so
Speaker 1: I do need a fix because I'm a fool, a fool,
Speaker 1: fool you and everything you don't you. So I made
Speaker 1: it through these meetings and it got even to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like one person was still taking pictures
Speaker 1: of me while another like the next person from Germany
Speaker 1: came in and we're going to talk to me, and
Speaker 1: so like the French people were still getting pictures while
Speaker 1: the Germany people were still trying to talk to me
Speaker 1: in a bowl. And then at the end of all that,
Speaker 1: UM I had one of my first legitimate panic attacks
Speaker 1: when I was finally back at the hotel. Um And
Speaker 1: of course like it's not ever in your life. Well no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, because I've had attack. No no no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I had. I had plenty of them. It's just like
Speaker 1: after I had gotten out, UM I didn't have panic
Speaker 1: attacks immediately after I got out of prison. UM I
Speaker 1: had plenty of roller coaster ride emotions that I was
Speaker 1: struggling with UM, but it was mostly um shock, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't sleep for a whole week after I got home,
Speaker 1: and just because of like over stimulation, like couldn't look
Speaker 1: out the window and see so many different things. And
Speaker 1: you can go places, and in the meantime, paparazzi are
Speaker 1: like following you everywhere, and you can't go to the
Speaker 1: grocery store without someone like in your face. And then
Speaker 1: so okay, anyway, going back pressed tour for the my
Speaker 1: memoir when it came out, it was it was one
Speaker 1: of my first really bad ones. And like I said,
Speaker 1: it wasn't HarperCollins fault, because HarperCollins did everything possible to
Speaker 1: make me feel safe, um, to make sure that nobody knew,
Speaker 1: like what hotel I was staying at it was under
Speaker 1: my false name, and like and I was very like
Speaker 1: shepherded from UM from like the HarperCollins offices, like personally
Speaker 1: by like the main person in their security force, just
Speaker 1: to make sure that I would feel safe and and
Speaker 1: no death threats came to Fruition. And then like that night,
Speaker 1: I I knew that I had to do one more
Speaker 1: interview in the morning, and I had. It was actually
Speaker 1: I had to do the Chris Cuomo interview in the morning,
Speaker 1: and it was like kind of ah, at the last
Speaker 1: minute scheduled thing, Like I was supposed to go home
Speaker 1: that night, but then they were like, actually, Chris Cuomo
Speaker 1: wants to interview you for CNN, so you should stay
Speaker 1: an extra day. And I was like, Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: I'll do that. And then that night I just could
Speaker 1: not breathe, and I kept like the thing that kept
Speaker 1: going around in my head was just like why me?
Speaker 1: Like why me? Everything that I just went through, Why
Speaker 1: me talking to Chris Cuomo? Why am I in this
Speaker 1: hotel room right now? Like what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Like who am I anymore? That like my whole life
Speaker 1: has just like gone off in this direction that I
Speaker 1: never intended, Like if you know, like I was just
Speaker 1: going to be an interpreter. That was that was your
Speaker 1: initial Yeah, that was that was going to be me.
Speaker 1: I was just a language nerd. You know how many
Speaker 1: languages you speak? I mean fluently only English and Italian,
Speaker 1: but um, I'm pretty proficient um in German, and I
Speaker 1: can like weirdly understand French and Spanish now just because
Speaker 1: I'm fluent in Italian. Yeah, so unless you're speaking super
Speaker 1: super fast Spanish at me, like I'll overhear you and
Speaker 1: I'll understand what you're talking about. I can. I can
Speaker 1: barely speak one language fluently, so that's very impressive. I
Speaker 1: don't know words, I don't know spellings. I feel like
Speaker 1: though the sense media sensatializing ship is something that uh
Speaker 1: obviously it's happening now all the time, and it's exhausting.
Speaker 1: But like with you, they fucking the I didn't realize
Speaker 1: how much slut shaming was such a huge part of
Speaker 1: your case, Like I really and and and that has
Speaker 1: got to be such I mean, that would alone would
Speaker 1: give me a panic attack because they're taking this narrative
Speaker 1: and they're taking something about you that is they don't know,
Speaker 1: they don't know you, and the in your dock in
Speaker 1: the documentary about you, it the fucking British reporter guy
Speaker 1: just basically admitted that he's that uh he said that
Speaker 1: when your headline has read that many times, it's almost
Speaker 1: better than sex. And and I'm like, that's why people
Speaker 1: do it, because whatever that feeling the better than sex
Speaker 1: feeling that they get this high. But there's like kind
Speaker 1: of an evilness to it because they're promote doing something
Speaker 1: that they know is exaggerated and they don't even know
Speaker 1: the story behind. Really, I mean that that I feel
Speaker 1: it was such a big reason why everybody is so
Speaker 1: obsessed with the case is because they took it and
Speaker 1: they were like, look at this, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: hot long girl and I think she might have murdered somebody,
Speaker 1: and they're just dangling it and that must feel so gross.
Speaker 1: Well it's it's um even more than like gross, because
Speaker 1: gross's definitely is a big part of it. Like you
Speaker 1: you know that, like everyone who is talking about your
Speaker 1: sex life is inevitably also fantasizing about your sex life,
Speaker 1: and so like that, like fear and fantasy are all
Speaker 1: wrapped up in it. So I inevitably, like I kind
Speaker 1: of have the impression that a lot of people who
Speaker 1: hate me have also masturbated. To me, there's that like,
Speaker 1: um but like I think for me, at the very least,
Speaker 1: it's always been more existentially um uh frustrating, or like
Speaker 1: it was more of an existential crisis than even like
Speaker 1: a grossness, because like it's not and this is all
Speaker 1: happening initially, you're twenty years old. Yeah, so twenty years old.
Speaker 1: Like you're already like at the moment you're a baby,
Speaker 1: you're like trying to figure out who you are in
Speaker 1: the world, so already, like identity is like an important
Speaker 1: thing to you, and then to be completely stripped of
Speaker 1: your identity and just kind of and just like the
Speaker 1: very super the most superficial thing about you is used
Speaker 1: to define you, so like just what you happen to
Speaker 1: look like, and just the fact that you happen to
Speaker 1: be in a woman's body in a world that objectifies
Speaker 1: women's bodies and has fantasies about the kinds of things
Speaker 1: women are, and then have that used like literally used
Speaker 1: to police you and put you in a prison cell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird that women's sexuality is always used to vilify them,
Speaker 1: even though everybody wants women to be sexual and they
Speaker 1: want them to be sexualized, but then everyone's so quick
Speaker 1: to jump on women women just get I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, you've got to think about like the
Speaker 1: equivalent for for men, which is like when men get stereotyped,
Speaker 1: and you know, wrongful convictions happen more often to men
Speaker 1: and they do to women. Um, what's it. What ends
Speaker 1: up happening is we like put we put famous or
Speaker 1: or public men into either a hero or a predator role, right,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to sexuality, you know, there is
Speaker 1: like the predator sexual role, and there is the hero
Speaker 1: sexual role for men. For women it's Madonna or Hore,
Speaker 1: it's Madonna or war and you it's the virgin or more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like, why why isn't there a celebrated figure
Speaker 1: that's sexual that is respected? And I know that, like
Speaker 1: that's that's the kind of like ad campaign that will
Speaker 1: see on the subway where they're like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: women who can you know, have swagger and be respected
Speaker 1: at the same time. But it's like we're telling ourselves
Speaker 1: that because we're having to convince the world that yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's we're on defense and I'm curious, Like it's weird.
Speaker 1: When krit and I first started doing this podcast, we
Speaker 1: were very and it started getting, you know, picking up steam.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, we're gonna get a lot of
Speaker 1: hate mail from people because everyone hates a sexualized woman
Speaker 1: or a woman who's like I don't care, I funck,
Speaker 1: I love fucking whatever. And we it really was shocking
Speaker 1: that we I mean there's been articles and like read
Speaker 1: it threads that are terrible, but that it's not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was nowhere near as bad as I as I envisioned. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean you have you ever seen your read it thread?
Speaker 1: Have you ever read it? I haven't read I haven't
Speaker 1: read it. I haven't read it, but I'm curious because
Speaker 1: it's like the most heinous place on the planet. I mean, um,
Speaker 1: I haven't scoured. I have stumbled across certain things that
Speaker 1: are on Reddit or on certain like m r A
Speaker 1: sites just you know, even in the court. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean even just in the course of doing, um
Speaker 1: the scarletter reports for Facebook. I was just looking in
Speaker 1: to see, like, oh, you know, have have I've ever
Speaker 1: been compared to any of these women? I don't know,
Speaker 1: let me find out, um or what what have these
Speaker 1: women been compared to? And when you inevitably like follow
Speaker 1: the Twitter link, that then leads to the m r
Speaker 1: A article that's like defining how like these women are
Speaker 1: gaming all the men and it's all a big conspiracy
Speaker 1: of like women using their sexuality to control men. And
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, Okay, it doesn't feel like it's from
Speaker 1: this side, dis guys run for the Hills look so
Speaker 1: frea annoying. Was it true that when you were initially imprisoned,
Speaker 1: they gave you a false report of having HIV and
Speaker 1: made you make a list of your lovers? So yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I was doing some research and I and I came
Speaker 1: across an article from the Irish Examiner and it seemed
Speaker 1: to be like written from the prospective of a woman
Speaker 1: who was pretty sexually empowered. And so that's just a
Speaker 1: fact that I was like, that's I mean besides seemingly
Speaker 1: being legal ish. Uh, it's certainly not legal. So what
Speaker 1: what ended up happening was in the first like a
Speaker 1: few weeks of my imprisonment, I was held in isolation
Speaker 1: and um, I didn't really have contact with anyone. I
Speaker 1: wasn't really allowed to see anyone. I was able to
Speaker 1: see my lawyer like maybe once or twice. What did
Speaker 1: that look like? Just a room with walls? Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: so how big was I mean? So it's it's not
Speaker 1: no windows, like, it wasn't a hole in the ground.
Speaker 1: It was a cell. It was just regular cell. It
Speaker 1: was a single cell. Um but like all that was
Speaker 1: in there was a steel bed frame a rectangle of
Speaker 1: foam for a mattress like a wool blanket, and uh,
Speaker 1: some like television that was mounted on the wall. It
Speaker 1: wrapped in duct tape and um and like garbage bags
Speaker 1: could watch it. No, I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: have access to the outside world. No books. No, I
Speaker 1: mean books because like if they're published thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: who cares. But like newspapers, I wasn't. I wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: as a suspect to have access to the news about
Speaker 1: the case. And so all I was receiving was news
Speaker 1: from my lawyers, who could only come in like once
Speaker 1: or twice in that time period. And then the guards
Speaker 1: in the prison, And there was this one particular guard
Speaker 1: who um his name is Via Comandante, so he was
Speaker 1: vice commander out of Judo. And he brought me into
Speaker 1: a private office room that was clearly like not being used.
Speaker 1: It's just an extra um office room. UM. And he
Speaker 1: would sit me there and interrogate me, um about my
Speaker 1: sex life, about my my sexual partners, about what underwear
Speaker 1: I happened to be wearing that day. He wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about Meredith. He wanted to talk about whether or
Speaker 1: not I'd be having sex with Meredith, whether or not
Speaker 1: I knew who she was having sex well, no, no,
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, Like he was kind of being
Speaker 1: like a he was helping out the investigators because like
Speaker 1: the investigators had just kind of decided by arresting me
Speaker 1: that I was somehow involved with my friends rape and murder,
Speaker 1: and so they were trying to like dig into my
Speaker 1: sexual history meredith sexual history. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he was also like trying to hit on me to
Speaker 1: see if like I would in some way correspond with that.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if it's even because he genuinely
Speaker 1: wanted to have sex with me. It could be that,
Speaker 1: or it was a tactic to try to like see
Speaker 1: if I would try to sexually manipulate him potentionally, because
Speaker 1: you know, the way that everyone talking about me was
Speaker 1: that I was a sexually manipulative fem at all. And
Speaker 1: so he was treatd like he was giving me those
Speaker 1: cues of like I'm ready to talk about sex with you,
Speaker 1: are you ready to seduce me? And and I was
Speaker 1: just like I was just like, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: is happening right now? Like can I leave this room?
Speaker 1: Because he locked the door behind him, So I don't
Speaker 1: know where the hell to go. And so and is
Speaker 1: it like clear what's legal, what's not? Like what you're
Speaker 1: absolutely not be like, bro, this is not a time
Speaker 1: for me to be horny. Are you kidding me? Oh
Speaker 1: my god? Well and then that and like and you
Speaker 1: mentioned like do I know what's legal or not? It's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I don't, because I had just been interrog Like what
Speaker 1: led me to that prison in the first place was
Speaker 1: an illegal interrogation where I had been refused a lawyer,
Speaker 1: where I had been slapped, where I had been screamed
Speaker 1: at for hours, and I had spent like fifty three
Speaker 1: hours being interrograted over five days. And I was like
Speaker 1: proficient in Italian, like a ten year old. So like, no,
Speaker 1: I that you're still learning the language at that point, right, So,
Speaker 1: and you're there, and did you have a choice to
Speaker 1: be interrogated in English or it was just like that
Speaker 1: wasn't even on the table. So this is a small town.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not like they had someone on staff
Speaker 1: who spoke fluent English. You know. I think I think people,
Speaker 1: especially in America, have a misconception that like in every
Speaker 1: town there was a guy who speaks English, and he's
Speaker 1: on call, like he's ready to help during your interrogation.
Speaker 1: Like I was in Romania, like no one like when
Speaker 1: I say no one spoke English, no one spoke English,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't even I was doing hand signals in stores,
Speaker 1: like no one grasped at all. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a huge misconception. So you know, like there was occasionally
Speaker 1: an interpreter and and a lot of time there wasn't.
Speaker 1: And so you know, like there's this issue of like,
Speaker 1: am I just fucking crazy that everyone started treating me
Speaker 1: in this way that I have? Like I haven't given
Speaker 1: them any reason to treat me in this way, so
Speaker 1: what is happening to me? So anyway, this guy ends
Speaker 1: up being like the guy who talks to me every day,
Speaker 1: and he does this whole thing every day where he's
Speaker 1: like this special contact person who just like weirdly hits
Speaker 1: on me in the like at nighttime in a prison.
Speaker 1: And then I am called into the doctor's you know, ward,
Speaker 1: and I'm told that I've tested positive for HIV because
Speaker 1: when I first came in, they like took a blood sample,
Speaker 1: they took a hair or whatever, and and all that's normal.
Speaker 1: For any prisoner taking. I mean, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what's fucking normal. I don't know. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: normal for them to do. Like when I was like
Speaker 1: when I was in the police station, I was stripped
Speaker 1: naked and photographed and like had a male doctor like
Speaker 1: playing with my generals and like playing like touching, opening
Speaker 1: photographing like that. But you but like I don't know
Speaker 1: what's legal, right and the reason Yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: well I mean the right, Yeah, the rights are. I
Speaker 1: mean I aren't the same, but I just also wouldn't
Speaker 1: have any idea what they were in America. Or male
Speaker 1: doctor looked into your vagina and took a picture, Yeah
Speaker 1: I had like a gynecological stirrups or well, no, I
Speaker 1: wasn't in gynecologe or gynecological stirrups. I was just strip
Speaker 1: naked and I had to stand there in the room
Speaker 1: and spread my legs as he went in there. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what, you know, like maybe he was
Speaker 1: looking to see if I had signs of being raped,
Speaker 1: But no one asked me. They just said strip naked,
Speaker 1: took a bunch of photographs of me and then brought
Speaker 1: me to prison, and so came to this medical ward
Speaker 1: in the prison unit and um, and the doctor told
Speaker 1: me that I had tested positive for HIV. And I
Speaker 1: immediately started crying and I was like, are you fucking
Speaker 1: kidding me? Like the top of everything else, I'm going
Speaker 1: to die. And and this guy who was there, who
Speaker 1: somehow has also access to the medical unit when I'm
Speaker 1: in there, was like, well, you shouldn't have slept with
Speaker 1: so many people then, and and I was just like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't understand, like I've always used protected, it's not
Speaker 1: then even slept with them. Any people I've only slept
Speaker 1: with like seven well in my whole life, Like what
Speaker 1: do you talk like? He was like, well, maybe you
Speaker 1: should think about that. Maybe you should go back into
Speaker 1: your room and think about that. My god, maybe you should,
Speaker 1: you know, really think about all those people that you've
Speaker 1: had sex with, because very likely they're the ones who
Speaker 1: gave it to you, and maybe you gave it to
Speaker 1: other people, and so you should just go back to
Speaker 1: your cell and think about that. Amanda, I cannot believe
Speaker 1: how great you are. I cannot believe how sane of
Speaker 1: a woman you are. You are so elegant and composed,
Speaker 1: and oh my god, I'd be punching every guy that
Speaker 1: looked at me. Well, I imagine I slut shaming does
Speaker 1: still take a back seat. I guess when you're convicted,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing I would get But on top of this,
Speaker 1: it's like the mind funk after mine. Fuck, so after
Speaker 1: you you you find this out? How long until you
Speaker 1: found out that that I wasn't the case? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I went back into my room. I started writing in
Speaker 1: this like notebook that I had been given UM and
Speaker 1: it was my little diary that I was using UM
Speaker 1: and I was writing, I don't want to die. I
Speaker 1: wrote down everyone that I had ever had sex with,
Speaker 1: was trying to be like thing happened, something like did
Speaker 1: some mistake happened in a condom break? Like what happened?
Speaker 1: And then the very next day came into my cell
Speaker 1: and confiscated my diary and then gave it to the police,
Speaker 1: who then gave it to the press. That ended up
Speaker 1: the press ultimately. Yeah, so that's yeah, And that's just
Speaker 1: like one small aspect because like I was in in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, my prosecutor was portraying me. He was using
Speaker 1: words like adulteress and um and you know, evil, like
Speaker 1: he was using diabolical um. A civil attorney in there
Speaker 1: called me Luciferina. He compared me, Yeah, he's God. What
Speaker 1: was what was the phrase? He said that I had
Speaker 1: a double soul and that I looked on the outside
Speaker 1: like a saint because I was really a demon inside.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I was trying to write a novel
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. That is such an odd way to I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's a dramatic human, as I noticed from the documentary,
Speaker 1: any reeks of just but were your lawyers, uh fighting
Speaker 1: those specific points of like you have no grounds for
Speaker 1: saying these things? Was anybody saying that, um? My lawyers
Speaker 1: were focusing on the facts of the case that were
Speaker 1: most relevant, like whether or not there was DNA um
Speaker 1: like my DNA in in the crime scene, which there wasn't,
Speaker 1: And they were trying to like make that very important
Speaker 1: point like how could she have committed this crime if
Speaker 1: the d n A isn't even there? Like she can't
Speaker 1: just like float around the room, clean up only herd
Speaker 1: DNA and leave like a bloody, gruesome crime scene for everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, for the taking, So like how is it possible?
Speaker 1: And they so they were they were battling against the
Speaker 1: things that they felt were most damning to me, which
Speaker 1: were you know, DNA evidence or the fact that I
Speaker 1: had been interrogated for fifty three hours without and you know,
Speaker 1: without any kind of legal assistance, and I was like
Speaker 1: coerced into making some kind of implicating statement, you know,
Speaker 1: Like that was what they were focused on. And I
Speaker 1: think that like that was them giving people more credit
Speaker 1: than than they realized. I think that they really genuinely
Speaker 1: thought that people would look at me and really see me,
Speaker 1: because when they came to visit me in the prison cell,
Speaker 1: like they were like, oh my god, you are so
Speaker 1: clearly like not the person that everyone is talking about.
Speaker 1: All we have to do is like put you in
Speaker 1: a room with people and they'll see you. And that
Speaker 1: was not what happened. What Like people saw what they
Speaker 1: wanted to see, Yes, because they always will, And that's
Speaker 1: one of I feel like that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why the headlines of it all got so swept up
Speaker 1: and people got so obsessed with it, because they're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to vilify this person. This is fun. I'm
Speaker 1: getting pleasure out of this and out of out of
Speaker 1: out of reading the next article about how much she's
Speaker 1: a horse. It's just so oh god. Well, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the prosecution was really just dealing with more
Speaker 1: like trying to tramp your character. So I mean, what
Speaker 1: what other things were they trying to present besides like
Speaker 1: a character like annihilation? Like what was the prosecution? What
Speaker 1: was what? I mean, what were they saying if DNA
Speaker 1: is on your side? I mean they were claiming that
Speaker 1: DNA was on their side. So they were saying, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter that Amanda Knox is DNA isn't in
Speaker 1: the crime scene. She must have cleaned it. And you
Speaker 1: know it doesn't you know, I mean, anyone who's watched
Speaker 1: like five minutes that's almost impossible to do in this
Speaker 1: day at age, but no one, but no one. And
Speaker 1: they were like focusing on the fact that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: after fifty three hours of interrogation, they got me to
Speaker 1: make a confusing that didn't make any sense that I
Speaker 1: immediately retracted, but it didn't matter that they had done
Speaker 1: the thing that made me look like a not incredible person.
Speaker 1: And then after traumatizing and manipulating you yea, And so
Speaker 1: they were focusing on saying, like my behavior was wrong,
Speaker 1: like I didn't show enough grief or I showed too
Speaker 1: much grief, or like I was just a strange person,
Speaker 1: and no innocent person could act that way, and that
Speaker 1: was what they really relied on, and that was what
Speaker 1: fueled their own investigation. And you know, like they they
Speaker 1: were responding to their own kinds of biases and to
Speaker 1: the pressure, like to the emotional and charged atmosphere of
Speaker 1: like a young woman being inexplicably murdered. So there's that
Speaker 1: to consider. You know, my prosecutor as a father of
Speaker 1: four daughters, and he really really identified with Meredith's family,
Speaker 1: and he was disgusted with what happened to Meredith, and
Speaker 1: he he did not realize how much his investigative intuition
Speaker 1: was being informed not by the evidence, but by bias.
Speaker 1: So like, I'm not looking at any of the people
Speaker 1: that did this to me as like you know, or
Speaker 1: even like the people who are like reading those magazines,
Speaker 1: people who are kind of sitting there maliciously going, this
Speaker 1: is so fun to like take down a woman, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking that that's how it is. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's more complicated than that. I think it's that
Speaker 1: we all have fears and fantasies. We all are on
Speaker 1: the lookout to have those fears and fantasies confirmed. And
Speaker 1: we don't always you know, we don't always stop to
Speaker 1: ask ourselves if we are believing something because we have
Speaker 1: reason to, or if because or if it's because we
Speaker 1: want to. And when they want I feel like when
Speaker 1: people want to believe something, I think it's very evident
Speaker 1: in like the political atmosphere currently, they will grab they
Speaker 1: will hold onto that and clutch it so tight because
Speaker 1: the fear of them being proven wrong is like the
Speaker 1: worst thing in the world, which is so interesting that
Speaker 1: people identify themselves with their beliefs, that's uh. And and
Speaker 1: so when you were in solitary confinement for how many days?
Speaker 1: So I don't even remember because it was so confusing,
Speaker 1: but I was so my imprisonment experience was odd. I
Speaker 1: mean Raphael, my co defendant, UM, he was in solitary
Speaker 1: for the entire duration. So he was in solitary for
Speaker 1: uh four years. Um, I was only in isolation for
Speaker 1: eight months. So that meant that like the way the
Speaker 1: prison and the only reason it was because the prison
Speaker 1: wasn't structured in such a way that I could be
Speaker 1: held in solitary like solitary was for me a cell
Speaker 1: on the same cell block as everyone else, but like
Speaker 1: I was locked in there and I couldn't leave, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't leave the room, and I had no access
Speaker 1: to the outside world. Being in isolation was when they
Speaker 1: moved me to a room that was exactly the same,
Speaker 1: but I was allowed to have access to the television,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't allowed to have any contact with other prisoners.
Speaker 1: And because it was like a really small prison, what
Speaker 1: that ended up looking like was I had a cell
Speaker 1: mate and I was allowed to talk to her, but
Speaker 1: I was not allowed to talk to anyone else, and
Speaker 1: I was never allowed in public spaces in the prison.
Speaker 1: And then after those eight months, I was just put
Speaker 1: into regular circulation. When you have a cellmate, what did
Speaker 1: you guys talk did you try and talk about this
Speaker 1: ship that was just to just I don't even know
Speaker 1: your favorite food or because how do you save your
Speaker 1: mental state in that environment? I mean it depends on
Speaker 1: the cell mate. Um was she cool or was she like? Well?
Speaker 1: My different ones I had. I had many different times
Speaker 1: because there was I mean, I was there for four years,
Speaker 1: and you know, some people get out, some people sometimes
Speaker 1: things don't work out. My first cellmate was UM, a
Speaker 1: very very mentally ill woman, UM, extremely mentally ill UM,
Speaker 1: and so we didn't really talk about much. Also because
Speaker 1: I didn't really speak the language very well. I was
Speaker 1: just kind of scared of her because she was like
Speaker 1: covered in self and inflicted wounds and I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what to do about that. UM. And then the
Speaker 1: next cell that I was in, older lady UM who
Speaker 1: uh like did like a lot of like you know,
Speaker 1: hand like like knitting type of crocheting, crocheting. We weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to knit, we were allowed to crochet, and so
Speaker 1: she taught me out to crochet, and I crochet a
Speaker 1: bunch you know. That was you know, like crochet a bunch. UM.
Speaker 1: And then my the cell maid after that was a
Speaker 1: young woman who I thought we were going to get
Speaker 1: along really well because she was with it and um
Speaker 1: and like it was even like studying. She had been
Speaker 1: in the prison for a while. She had been in
Speaker 1: prison since she was very young. She even claimed to
Speaker 1: have been innocent, and you know, I could even believe
Speaker 1: that she was innocent. But by the time I got
Speaker 1: to her, she UM, she had like her her the
Speaker 1: prison environment had aggravated o c D tendencies and where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I have no control over my life,
Speaker 1: but I have control over how clean my room is,
Speaker 1: and so like it got to the point where like
Speaker 1: I wasn't actually allowed to tie anything, and so I
Speaker 1: was just allowed to sit on my bed and and
Speaker 1: like read my books and I wasn't allowed to touch anything. Um,
Speaker 1: so she scary, was she like I'll punch, bitch, I'll
Speaker 1: punch in the face if you touch my bed kind
Speaker 1: of thing? Like how because or were you just you
Speaker 1: want to abide by that just to not I did
Speaker 1: not want to ruffle her feathers at all. I don't
Speaker 1: think that I ever. I mean I did. I was
Speaker 1: afraid that she might hit me, but like I don't
Speaker 1: think that she would have like gouged my eyes out
Speaker 1: or anything, right, Like well, you know, like I've had
Speaker 1: roommates where I yeah, yeah, So she she just seemed like, um,
Speaker 1: a deeply hurting person who didn't have control over anything,
Speaker 1: and I didn't like, again, like I'm not a trained psychologist,
Speaker 1: so I don't really know how to navigate that situation.
Speaker 1: I just tried to like let her have her space.
Speaker 1: And the unfortunate thing about that was her space also
Speaker 1: happened to meet my space, and so like, I didn't
Speaker 1: really have a say. But you know, honestly, like I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in prison just in my
Speaker 1: own head. The wore earplugs most of the time because
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to hear people like screaming, and
Speaker 1: I read books. I mean, how often are you like
Speaker 1: in danger? I mean, I know, like a lot of
Speaker 1: times in TV shows that's portrayed as like prisoners just
Speaker 1: beating the ship out of each other and prison guards
Speaker 1: not doing anything. Is that accurate? Is that is? And
Speaker 1: and sexual assault does that happen? Okay? So I don't
Speaker 1: know about like if I mean, I think it depends
Speaker 1: prison to prison very honestly. Um, in my prison in particular, UM,
Speaker 1: it's not like people were getting beat up every day.
Speaker 1: So you know, like an average day, no one got
Speaker 1: beat up. People tended to get along. There was always like, um,
Speaker 1: there was always a kind of simmering anxiety because we
Speaker 1: were animals locked up in cages, So of course there's
Speaker 1: gonna be like a simmering anxiety and we're all in
Speaker 1: desperate circumstances, and there was a lot of camaraderie in
Speaker 1: that but you know, like at the drop of a penny,
Speaker 1: like somebody could just flip and um and you you
Speaker 1: didn't see it coming. Like no one ever attacked me
Speaker 1: because I ended up being a very useful person to
Speaker 1: have around, Like I was, well, I was one of
Speaker 1: the only people in that whole place that was literate,
Speaker 1: oh damn, Like I was the only person there who
Speaker 1: had all of my teeth still. And the vast majority
Speaker 1: of the women that I was imprisoned with were immigrants,
Speaker 1: and so they didn't speak the language and or they
Speaker 1: didn't know how to read or write, so I translated
Speaker 1: their court documents for them. I wrote their letters for them.
Speaker 1: What an angel? No, No, Like it was self preservation,
Speaker 1: Like I mean sure, like I felt bad for them
Speaker 1: and everything, but like you know, I'm I you needed
Speaker 1: a task, I mean, having a purpose as a big
Speaker 1: part of what it is to be human. So I
Speaker 1: imagine that that kept you a lot. And it's also
Speaker 1: like giving yourself a job, which you know, we all
Speaker 1: hate our job a lot of that. I don't hate
Speaker 1: my job. A lot of people hate their jobs. But
Speaker 1: it's like a job gives you something to do or
Speaker 1: a reason to get up in the morning. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted something purposeful, and like, you know, after I
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted, like I was facing twenty six years
Speaker 1: in prison, and so I had to figure out like
Speaker 1: what that meant and what like my life meant, and
Speaker 1: who I was if I was only allowed to exist
Speaker 1: in that environment, and if I was the literate one,
Speaker 1: if I was the one who could translate, like I
Speaker 1: was happy to do that, and so like, so you're
Speaker 1: arrested and at the time you're when you're arrested, you're
Speaker 1: still dating Raphael. Yeah, and then so what do you
Speaker 1: what happened? I mean, when's the next time you see him?
Speaker 1: What happens in your relationship? I'm so curious, Like do
Speaker 1: you just like, oh, we're in prison now, I guess
Speaker 1: to be broke up? Or like what? Well, so we
Speaker 1: knew each other for five days we had and dating
Speaker 1: for like five okay, okay, So that new romance, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys had, Like it made me look back to
Speaker 1: my first or second boyfriend of just like young and
Speaker 1: obsessed and just like I just want to lick your skin. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it was just so sweet because like he he
Speaker 1: recognized that, like I was new to this place and
Speaker 1: so like, of course I should have like the Italian experience.
Speaker 1: I should like an Italian woman, I should have an
Speaker 1: Italian perfume, and we should go to Gubio and Truffles
Speaker 1: and like do the Italian thing. And he is like
Speaker 1: the good Italian guy, was like, oh, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to like he wanted to me to meet his parents,
Speaker 1: like he told me he wanted me to meet his
Speaker 1: parenting and stuff together. And I was like, I can't
Speaker 1: believe that's all happened in five days. Sometimes when you
Speaker 1: get obsessed with somebody, you're just like, oh, why don't
Speaker 1: we have a kids? I don't get yeah sweet, like
Speaker 1: like so young and like excited, and then this ha
Speaker 1: been and you know, he went through just as terrible
Speaker 1: as an interrogations and so like he got scared and
Speaker 1: confused and was courced into saying things, and I got
Speaker 1: scared and confused and was conforced into same things. And
Speaker 1: then we weren't even allowed to talk to each other
Speaker 1: during the investigations. There's eight months that go by. He um.
Speaker 1: I think the first thing that he did um, the
Speaker 1: first contact I had with him was on my birthday
Speaker 1: in July, right after the interrogation or sorry, the investigation
Speaker 1: was over, and he sent me flowers somehow. I don't
Speaker 1: know how, Like I don't know how you can even do,
Speaker 1: Like I've still to this day don't even know how
Speaker 1: he was allowed to send me flowers for my birthday.
Speaker 1: And they arrived and he was just like, I'm I'm here,
Speaker 1: like we're going to survive this, Oh my god. And
Speaker 1: I was just like that, like that's so sweet. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I was also like, I've just
Speaker 1: spent the last eight months in prison and like the
Speaker 1: last I mean, he was like, we were in we
Speaker 1: were in a shitty situation. We did like the most
Speaker 1: you had. No one had been It seemed like not
Speaker 1: anybody had been nice or kind or respectful towards you
Speaker 1: this whole time. So those flowers were probably like they
Speaker 1: meant the world. We were. We were under siege together
Speaker 1: and we had this incredible struggle to get through that
Speaker 1: we thought would be over. Like every day we thought
Speaker 1: it would like somebody would realize that it was all
Speaker 1: a big mistake and it would all be over. And
Speaker 1: every day went by and nothing happened, nothing happened, kept
Speaker 1: getting worse and kept getting worse. And so like the
Speaker 1: next time I actually saw him was when we were
Speaker 1: having our first initial you know, trial hearing your Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how did you When did you tell your parents?
Speaker 1: When did I how my parents? Yeah? Because that I mean,
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't even have out of that until I'm
Speaker 1: in prison. I realized, Oh, yes, Ship, Mom and dad
Speaker 1: think I'm just studying in Italy. I gotta tell him,
Speaker 1: like how did they find out? Oh? No, Like immediately after,
Speaker 1: like I didn't even know Meredith was dead yet by
Speaker 1: the time I was calling my mom and I was like,
Speaker 1: something's wrong, oh, Ship, Because like I came home to
Speaker 1: my house and I found the front door totally wide
Speaker 1: open and nobody was there, and like I noticed some
Speaker 1: weird things in the house and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to make of them. So like I immediately did the
Speaker 1: first thing that comes to mind, and I called my
Speaker 1: mom and I was like, Mom, what do you think? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's like I don't think anything's been stolen.
Speaker 1: I can't really tell like why the front door was open.
Speaker 1: And she was like, well, what does Raphael think? And
Speaker 1: I was like, well, he he's at his apartment. I
Speaker 1: should go get him and look at it and then
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, and so, like, you know, he was
Speaker 1: the one who immediately, you know, was calling the police
Speaker 1: as soon as we got back to the house and
Speaker 1: found like we opened one of my roommates stores and
Speaker 1: found that her window had been broken, and we were like, ship,
Speaker 1: it's a break in. So he called the cops because
Speaker 1: I can't talk to cops. I don't have enough vocabulary
Speaker 1: to do that. And I'm calling my mom and I'm like, Mom,
Speaker 1: there's been a break in, like you know, and she
Speaker 1: was like are you safe? Are you okay? As Raphael,
Speaker 1: They're like, are the police coming? And so like I
Speaker 1: was talking to my mom the entire way through it,
Speaker 1: and indeed, you know, I was telling her about all
Speaker 1: these like hours of questioning that I was going through,
Speaker 1: and she got the mom tingle feelings like something's wrong,
Speaker 1: like they shouldn't be questioned you so much, like you've
Speaker 1: already answered all your questions. Why do they keep making
Speaker 1: you answer the same questions over and over? And I
Speaker 1: kept reassuring her that that, like they kept just telling
Speaker 1: me that I was Meridith's friend and it was important
Speaker 1: that I helped them, and so like they were like
Speaker 1: telling me that I was important to the investigation and
Speaker 1: that I should just continue helping them whatever that meant.
Speaker 1: And my mom was like, you know what, I'm coming
Speaker 1: to Italy and she said this like on the phone
Speaker 1: to me. Of course, by this time, my phones were
Speaker 1: wire tapped, so the police knew that my mom was coming.
Speaker 1: They knew from our phone conversations that my mom was
Speaker 1: arriving on a certain date, and that date happened to
Speaker 1: be the day after they interrogated me and arrested me,
Speaker 1: So they knew that, like as soon as my mom arrived, like,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have the full access to me that they did.
Speaker 1: And if they probably because your mom could say like, honey,
Speaker 1: this is not this is my mom would have gotten
Speaker 1: me a lawyer. We would have gone to the embassy. Like.
Speaker 1: So they just saw the opportunity of their opportunity window closing,
Speaker 1: and they were like, we got to arrest this bitch now,
Speaker 1: so make or say something. Damn. So, what's happening in
Speaker 1: your life? I was kind of going to go backwards
Speaker 1: before the murder, like, what is going on in your life?
Speaker 1: How long have you been in Italy before all this
Speaker 1: goes down? Oh? Um, I had only been in Italy
Speaker 1: for like a month. Um. I so like I arrived
Speaker 1: in Europe around like the end of August, and I
Speaker 1: was staying in Germany with my aunt who lives in Germany,
Speaker 1: and I stayed there for like a month and then
Speaker 1: only once, it was sometime in mid September, did I
Speaker 1: moved down and like find and find a spot start
Speaker 1: of school, right, you're studying abroad. So I was, you know,
Speaker 1: like the semester started. I think classes started at the
Speaker 1: beginning of October, and it was still like bright and
Speaker 1: sunny at that time, which blew my mind coming from Seattle. UM.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I wasn't there for very long. I
Speaker 1: was just I was twenty. I just turned twenty over
Speaker 1: the over the summer. And you seemed like, um, the
Speaker 1: some of the footage of you before, like you're like
Speaker 1: a funny. You seemed like a fun I watched those
Speaker 1: footages or that footage now and I'm like, oh God,
Speaker 1: I was embarrassed. You You are like I was. I was.
Speaker 1: I was just I thought I was the ship when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen and was not. But you you seemed
Speaker 1: like you had like a very um fun life, a
Speaker 1: fun charismatic yeah. I think people were right to call
Speaker 1: me bubbly. Yeah, just like I very much just liked
Speaker 1: being around people, and I was very like open about like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you're you're gonna do a tiramisu party. I'll
Speaker 1: come and I'll bring my guitar and it'll be great.
Speaker 1: You're a guitar girl, and I'm a good dad. But
Speaker 1: the one who can't really play the guitar. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of guitar girl. Have a piano. I don't
Speaker 1: really know it, but you know, hot cross Buns is hot.
Speaker 1: But you haven't part in this very small apartment, which
Speaker 1: means that you've committed Hell yeah, yeah, I'm download and
Speaker 1: um so so, I mean so like I want to
Speaker 1: do more traditional interview, not just talk about you know this,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you're sick of talking about your entire life.
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting because I know you decided to
Speaker 1: kind of like become an activist right about it. You've
Speaker 1: done work with the Innocence Project, which I love. You've
Speaker 1: watched a lot of stuff about that. Um and so
Speaker 1: is that is kind of you feel like something bad
Speaker 1: happened to me and now this is going to be
Speaker 1: my calling I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen to
Speaker 1: anybody else, Or do you have other things that you
Speaker 1: want to do professionally or personally? So um yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: once again, I have a very complicated answer to your
Speaker 1: very like love it a cute question? Um So, when
Speaker 1: I first got home, I didn't want to have anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be an activist, like I just
Speaker 1: wanted to go back to being me, Like I just
Speaker 1: wanted to go back to being, you know, a creative
Speaker 1: writing and like language student, and I just I didn't
Speaker 1: want this thing that had happened to me to define
Speaker 1: me because I didn't do any of it. I was
Speaker 1: just kind of there and it was swirling around me,
Speaker 1: and like lots of people were taking lots of actions
Speaker 1: and making lots of decisions, and none of them consulted me.
Speaker 1: None of them like cared about like how I felt
Speaker 1: about Like I had nothing to do with it, and
Speaker 1: so it didn't Did you still feel like yourself at
Speaker 1: the time or like did you have a recollection or
Speaker 1: did this did you feel like this whole process like
Speaker 1: change like that at the core who you are or
Speaker 1: did you still feel like I know me and that
Speaker 1: I still feel like your twenties, like I was. My
Speaker 1: goal of my twenties was to find myself and it
Speaker 1: was difficult. I can't fucking imagine going through that and
Speaker 1: then who am I? I don't know well because okay,
Speaker 1: so when I first got home, um, obviously I had
Speaker 1: changed because I had gone through so much pain, UM
Speaker 1: and so much loneliness UM. Like I had, I had
Speaker 1: had to grapple with whether or not I felt that
Speaker 1: my life was worth living. I like, I had gone
Speaker 1: through all of that UM. But I thought that I
Speaker 1: would go back to who I was before once I
Speaker 1: finally got out of prison. So I was convinced that, like,
Speaker 1: I would turn back into like that bubbly person that
Speaker 1: I that I was. And it's not like I had
Speaker 1: like my personality had fundamentally changed. It's just I had.
Speaker 1: I had a broader range of experiences and therefore there
Speaker 1: was there was I had. There were more shades to me,
Speaker 1: like you know, if I was like bright yellow when
Speaker 1: I went in, I was now like you know, there
Speaker 1: were places of like you know, gold and then also
Speaker 1: like gray and like mixed in with all of that
Speaker 1: like yellow that was still yellow, but it was it
Speaker 1: had depth, and and it was dirty, and it was complicated,
Speaker 1: um and it took me a while to really come
Speaker 1: to terms with the fact that, like whether or not
Speaker 1: I wanted what had happened to me to be a
Speaker 1: part of me, I didn't have a choice, Like I
Speaker 1: couldn't just like put it aside. Resisting it would not
Speaker 1: do anod In fact, it was hurting me to resist it.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that actually gave me hope
Speaker 1: that like somehow it could would be something that had
Speaker 1: finally had to do with me by the way I
Speaker 1: reacted to it, was this girl I met in a
Speaker 1: poetry class that I was taking at the U dub
Speaker 1: So like I didn't make friends at the time, like
Speaker 1: there there were after you came back, after I came back,
Speaker 1: because like there are very few people I felt like
Speaker 1: I could trust and I had good reason not to
Speaker 1: trust them, Like I had people in my classes who
Speaker 1: were taking photographs of me and putting them online alongside
Speaker 1: really unkind commentary like this one guy in my math
Speaker 1: class was talking about how he was going like he
Speaker 1: was telling his snowboard and a snowboarding friends online that
Speaker 1: he was going to like seduce me and p in
Speaker 1: my butt, And first of all, that's not even possible, diot.
Speaker 1: You have to get well, it's all that matters. And
Speaker 1: when did you find that out that he did that?
Speaker 1: And did you? I mean, because kids are stupid. You're
Speaker 1: a calm lady, But man, I would have been like
Speaker 1: I would have gone up to him and be like,
Speaker 1: do you want to read this to my face? You
Speaker 1: want to say this to my face? What I did
Speaker 1: was I went to I went to the teacher, and
Speaker 1: I said what do I do? Because I don't feel safe?
Speaker 1: And they had a talking with him. And I initially
Speaker 1: was angry, um, angry enough to be like some a
Speaker 1: student who talks like that to another or says that
Speaker 1: about another student shouldn't be on this campus. And the
Speaker 1: people who I spoke to at my college said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, kids say a lot of things and they
Speaker 1: don't always mean them, and this kid was just running
Speaker 1: his mouth, and so let us talk to him, let
Speaker 1: us let like, let us use this as a learning
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to realize that his words have consequences
Speaker 1: and let that be the result. And I like came
Speaker 1: around to that like that was say how do you
Speaker 1: feel about that? When they said that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: also looked I was by this time, like four, and
Speaker 1: this was like an eighteen year old you know, like
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old kid who like thinks he knows
Speaker 1: ship and you've had a couple other experiences under your
Speaker 1: belt at that point. Yeah. Well, and I just like
Speaker 1: I look at everyone and I think, like, what is
Speaker 1: the context to their situation? Like even if you know,
Speaker 1: even my prosecutor is like a grown ass man who
Speaker 1: should know better, and yet he's informed by things that
Speaker 1: are also not entirely within his control. Like he he
Speaker 1: his actions are in part governed by his cultural upbringing
Speaker 1: and his his like deep not even conscious like desires
Speaker 1: and and and impulses to vilify and punish things according
Speaker 1: to like conscious processes. Like he he has a bad
Speaker 1: relationship with female sexuality. And I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: that that is entirely intentional on his part. I think
Speaker 1: that to fully under stand him and why he did
Speaker 1: this to me, I have to recognize that, just like
Speaker 1: I have to recognize that this kid doesn't look at
Speaker 1: like someone who he considers a celebrity. True, and then
Speaker 1: the celebrity part of it, and you're like, I didn't
Speaker 1: fucking were you. Did you know when you came back
Speaker 1: to Seattle, did you know how much it had blown up?
Speaker 1: Not to the extent that it had, Like everyone who
Speaker 1: visited me like would occasionally say like, hey, just you know,
Speaker 1: this thing is way bigger than you even imagine, Like
Speaker 1: you don't even know, because like I was in a
Speaker 1: prison cell. I only had access to like five channels
Speaker 1: of Italian television and Italian newspapers. And if like somebody
Speaker 1: happened to send me a newspaper from some other part
Speaker 1: of the world, like that's how I would have access
Speaker 1: to it. I did not have direct access to it.
Speaker 1: The most I could imagine how much it was was
Speaker 1: the fact that like every time I walked into the room,
Speaker 1: the courtroom was flooded with cameras. But like even that
Speaker 1: is like I don't know what those cameras are doing
Speaker 1: with them, Like I don't know who these people are.
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing the outcome, and I'm not seeing how
Speaker 1: much people are talking about it or like talking about
Speaker 1: not just the case, but also like Foxy Knoxy, would
Speaker 1: you fucker wouldn't you and like like all those like
Speaker 1: just like stupid petty bullshit that came with being Foxy Knoxie,
Speaker 1: like I didn't know. And then when I came home
Speaker 1: to Seattle, I kind of had this like weirdly positive
Speaker 1: effect where you know, people didn't show up at the airport,
Speaker 1: hundreds of people that they didn't show up at the
Speaker 1: airport to protest me coming home, hundreds of people showed
Speaker 1: up to welcome me. Yeah, like there was there was
Speaker 1: a press conference I had to deal with, which I
Speaker 1: wasn't prepared for. But mind all those cameras were hundreds
Speaker 1: of people from Seattle holding up signs saying welcome home,
Speaker 1: and like, ah, blew my mind. Like for weeks later,
Speaker 1: like my local record store had the sign like instead
Speaker 1: of like you know, upcoming McLamore, yeah, it was like
Speaker 1: welcome home, Amanda. And I was like, holy shit, like
Speaker 1: not only have all these people heard everything that just
Speaker 1: went down, but like they all care? Wow, So oh
Speaker 1: my god, why would anyone care? Like well, I think
Speaker 1: a deep down a lot of people, you know, when abroad,
Speaker 1: haveing like a broke down palace kind of fear. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna go away, something's gonna happen, or maybe
Speaker 1: that's just I have that fear being like of disappearing
Speaker 1: of like just going and like uh or like being
Speaker 1: like wrongly in prison like number one the worst thing.
Speaker 1: And then in a country that you're not familiar with,
Speaker 1: you bad because I mean, I like I've spent years
Speaker 1: like following the Damian Echols case obviously, I mean I
Speaker 1: can't even I literally have run into him on the
Speaker 1: subway and I like to have a and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you guys have friends. I mean, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him in a while because he's here
Speaker 1: and like Lorie, his wife and him are so so
Speaker 1: smart and so kind and like are just so grounded,
Speaker 1: and they've they helped me through a really bad time.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you guys have a lot, Like
Speaker 1: it's great that you guys could connect because then he was,
Speaker 1: you know, famous since and it's like that those layers,
Speaker 1: I mean you both experienced those layers. That's crazy. And
Speaker 1: you know, like talk about like being stereotyped, like you're
Speaker 1: the weirdo kids, so you must be a predator where
Speaker 1: you must be a Satan worshiper, Like no, it's just
Speaker 1: a kid, just a kid who likes to wear black coats.
Speaker 1: How come on? What was your relationship with your own
Speaker 1: sexuality before all this and then when you came home
Speaker 1: to Seattle? Like how Like I look at my sexuality.
Speaker 1: It's a big part of me. Did you lose? How
Speaker 1: do you do you keep that? Do you do you
Speaker 1: just put it on a on a shelf? How do
Speaker 1: you how? God? Um? I feel bad for like all
Speaker 1: the guys that I know who have been wronkly convicted
Speaker 1: and who have spent like decades inside because when I've
Speaker 1: heard them talk about like their sexuality and how they
Speaker 1: dealt with it in prison, they don't often talk about
Speaker 1: it for the record, um, but when they have, um,
Speaker 1: it's often like I just turned off a part of
Speaker 1: myself and like and they say it in this kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, you just got to turn off
Speaker 1: a part of yourself. And like, for me, the idea
Speaker 1: that you are turning off, like if you are just
Speaker 1: completely cutting the limb of like that part of yourself
Speaker 1: a from you because you you're not allowed to express it.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed like you're it's only going to torture
Speaker 1: you in that environment. Like that broke my heart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I learned how to masturbate in prison, So I was
Speaker 1: gonna ask that you learned how to master it in prison,
Speaker 1: or that was the first time you were masturbating was
Speaker 1: in prison? Okay? No, I mean I hear I I
Speaker 1: didn't masturbate until it was like until I was like
Speaker 1: in the eighteen I would say. So, I mean I
Speaker 1: was I was a light bloomer too, or I was
Speaker 1: just like I didn't really figure that out. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, you could use your sexual I was curious
Speaker 1: if you would use your sexuality? Is like, let me
Speaker 1: just only be in this part of myself for just
Speaker 1: a little bit, or did you just against something? No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, it's not like I accidentally stumbled
Speaker 1: upon like a bed post and I was like, because
Speaker 1: that's how what happened to me. Like I was just
Speaker 1: like in bed, and what would what would happen is
Speaker 1: like some nights you can't sleep, and you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't take any med occasion. Most of the people in
Speaker 1: the prison we're taking like antidepressants or stuff for their
Speaker 1: drug addiction, and so it would usually just like conch
Speaker 1: them out as soon as they took that med. And
Speaker 1: so what I would do is I would find myself
Speaker 1: alone in my cell. Were not alone in my cell,
Speaker 1: everyone else's they were sleeps, they were out, and I
Speaker 1: had a limited window between when the guard passed and
Speaker 1: like walked the block and then passed again, because they
Speaker 1: would just like look in on you and like I
Speaker 1: couldn't take a shower without someone looking in on me,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And so like what I knew,
Speaker 1: it was about five minutes and so such a short
Speaker 1: amount of time. It's such a short amount of time.
Speaker 1: Have to like click into it, and you know, like
Speaker 1: so you and it's quiet, so like you hear like
Speaker 1: the like you know, the their boots down the thing,
Speaker 1: and you just kind of like listen for it, and
Speaker 1: like so a part of yourself is trying to like
Speaker 1: turn that away and you're trying to be like, oh
Speaker 1: that like really cute guy that I met once, yeah,
Speaker 1: um um, and then but also paying attention to that
Speaker 1: because you don't want the guard like I would. I
Speaker 1: did not want the guard to like be a part
Speaker 1: of my very private moment. Yeah. Well it's like you
Speaker 1: know what mom and dad to walk in, But it's
Speaker 1: a prision prison version of that, which is you know,
Speaker 1: terrifyingly worse. Um when you came so when you came
Speaker 1: back initially to Seattle positive reaction. Did you then experience
Speaker 1: any slut shaming in America? And then, if so, what
Speaker 1: was the difference between Italian slut shaming and American kind
Speaker 1: of going off? Because I just I know, I follow
Speaker 1: Asia Argento a lot, and I know with the Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinsteine case, like the Italian women have been less than
Speaker 1: supportive of her, and I didn't know if there was
Speaker 1: kind of like a cultural difference in how you were
Speaker 1: treated as a sexual person a woman. I mean, I
Speaker 1: um with Asia, it's frustrating because like, if anything, Italy
Speaker 1: treats the has like the Madonna Horre dichotomy even more
Speaker 1: just like deeply embedded in like oh, like when women
Speaker 1: are either or it's just that's just like they're just
Speaker 1: way more blatant about it. Here. It's more like like
Speaker 1: here's more subliminal, Like no one will say, you know,
Speaker 1: women are either horrors or good women, but like they'll
Speaker 1: act like it, and they'll treat you a certain they'll
Speaker 1: treat you like the bad kind of woman when they
Speaker 1: feel entitled to which is worse you think, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're both shitty, but having somebody act one way and
Speaker 1: says something else to me. Would Um, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: I've not actually thought that much about how Italy and
Speaker 1: the US and the UK are different in this regard,
Speaker 1: because I'm just fully aware of how they're very similar.
Speaker 1: So like I didn't I was slut shamed here just
Speaker 1: as much as I was slut shamed there. It's just
Speaker 1: I was in a prison cell over there, So like
Speaker 1: the slut shaming came in a in a certain kind
Speaker 1: of way like I would in the courtroom, I was
Speaker 1: being portrayed in a very particular way. Um. The male
Speaker 1: guards would um be very hands like oh yeah, like, Um,
Speaker 1: the first fourth of July that I was in prison, Um,
Speaker 1: this guard who was in charge of like his job
Speaker 1: was to like make sure he was kind of like
Speaker 1: a maintenance guy who was also a guard, And his
Speaker 1: job was like if something stopped working the cell, like
Speaker 1: say the shower had stopped working, he brought in some
Speaker 1: like guys to come and fix it. And he would
Speaker 1: be the guard who was kind of managing those like
Speaker 1: maintenance guys. And this one time my showers stopped, like
Speaker 1: the drain stopped working, just would flood up, and so
Speaker 1: I asked for assistance from the maintenance people, and this
Speaker 1: one male guard came in and was like show me
Speaker 1: and just himself. He was just like you a man,
Speaker 1: to show me the drain, And so I went into
Speaker 1: the bathroom to show him, and then he grabbed me
Speaker 1: and like pulled me into him, and I had to
Speaker 1: I don't even know like what move I did, because
Speaker 1: I didn't even like I didn't push back against him.
Speaker 1: I just kind of like slipped out from underneath him.
Speaker 1: Like it's weird because I get that like deer in
Speaker 1: headlights thing where like my brain turns off and like
Speaker 1: my body just kind of like I think my body
Speaker 1: crumpled in on itself as I just like saw it
Speaker 1: happening to me like from above, and I just kind
Speaker 1: of like crumpled into myself. And then as soon as
Speaker 1: like he wasn't like I didn't have his clutches on me,
Speaker 1: like I just bolted for the cell. Like from then
Speaker 1: you had a cell mate in the cell the cell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did have cell mates in the cell the time,
Speaker 1: but they weren't in the bat Like there's two parts
Speaker 1: of it, and there's like the bathroom Mary, where you
Speaker 1: could close the door jeeze, and then what was the
Speaker 1: interaction after that? Was he like he came out and
Speaker 1: then he did he fix it and then he just
Speaker 1: walked out Jesus Christ. Uh what So, how long after
Speaker 1: you're back in America do you have like finding yourself
Speaker 1: to have either like a sexual meaningful like sexual relationship,
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with somebody, Like when do you find that
Speaker 1: trust again? So I didn't make new friends, but the
Speaker 1: thing that I was very fortunate with was that I
Speaker 1: had many many friends from before. In fact, like I
Speaker 1: had like all of my college friends would come all
Speaker 1: the way out from the University of Washington and like
Speaker 1: take you know, like an half hour bus ride out
Speaker 1: to West Seattle to my mom's house and stay over
Speaker 1: in the night so that they could be there at
Speaker 1: six o'clock in the morning when I had my ten
Speaker 1: ten minute phone call every week. So like I had
Speaker 1: like yeah, and I had like I had a friend
Speaker 1: at the U dub who like came and lived in
Speaker 1: Italy for a year so that she could come visit
Speaker 1: me in prison. So like I I had very very
Speaker 1: good friends. And of those friends, one of them was
Speaker 1: a guy that I had dated and we kind of
Speaker 1: rekindled when I got home and he was the first
Speaker 1: person that I was sexual with afterwards, and so I
Speaker 1: felt very sad at him. Yeah, that's great that you
Speaker 1: had this pass with him and then you trusted him.
Speaker 1: How was that though, Like did you get did you
Speaker 1: enjoy it? Were you? I mean? Or was like having
Speaker 1: sex for the first time again because it had been Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was very It was very much like having sex
Speaker 1: for the first time again. And it was also very
Speaker 1: much like he was very mindful like he was. It's
Speaker 1: not like he was like no, he wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: In fact, like, um, you know, he was even reticent
Speaker 1: to like be at first, Like you know, he was
Speaker 1: like the last thing you need right now is like
Speaker 1: a relationship, Like I just want to like be around you,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know. So it was very much
Speaker 1: like this, this organic like we're spending time together, we're
Speaker 1: talking um and at a certain point, like we were
Speaker 1: just cuddling, and he like he was very slow to
Speaker 1: be physical like he would He was very mindful like
Speaker 1: is this okay? How does this? Like he was asking
Speaker 1: me the whole time, um, And I was very very
Speaker 1: self conscious of my body because I mean, in prison,
Speaker 1: I was only ever touched by guards, um, and they
Speaker 1: were usually only touching me to strip search me. So
Speaker 1: like I got to the point where I was like
Speaker 1: twitchy even when like my family members touched me. Like
Speaker 1: I remember, like my friend who came and lived in
Speaker 1: Perugia for a year, She came visiting me one day
Speaker 1: and like brushed an eyelash off my cheek, and I
Speaker 1: like jolted because I wasn't used to people touching me
Speaker 1: kindly anymore. And so like what she would do is
Speaker 1: she would like give me hand massages when I like invisitation,
Speaker 1: just like someone would touch me nice for like an hour.
Speaker 1: And I was only allowed like six visitations a month
Speaker 1: that lasted an hour each. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I got six hours a month of being touched nicely.
Speaker 1: And so then I find myself in an environment where
Speaker 1: it's like I'm I'm being intimate with somebody, and that
Speaker 1: somebody happened to be one already like familiar with me
Speaker 1: and to like just a very mindful person, Like he
Speaker 1: just was a very mindful person. I was very lucky. Um,
Speaker 1: I've not I've been unlucky with other people since then. Um,
Speaker 1: how so were they not mindful or were they in
Speaker 1: the opposite, like even more extreme than that. No, um So,
Speaker 1: I you know what, actually, maybe I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into that particular occurrence. Um. So instead I also
Speaker 1: tell you another good story, which is um. I one
Speaker 1: of the things that it's it's it's hard to be intimate,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to also be in a relationship. It's
Speaker 1: hard to meet somebody new, you know. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't make friends and um and oftentimes I even
Speaker 1: wondered if like people loved me for who I had
Speaker 1: been as opposed for who I was now. Like there
Speaker 1: was always that like struggle because everyone had, you know,
Speaker 1: grown up and changed and and I think that people
Speaker 1: were learning who I was again, just like I was
Speaker 1: learning who I was again because of everything that had happened. UM.
Speaker 1: One person, UM who I deeply, deeply cared about, seemed too.
Speaker 1: I realized over a few months that he loved the
Speaker 1: idea of me more than he actually loved me. And
Speaker 1: that was problematic. Like, you know, I'm not Joan of arc.
Speaker 1: You don't get to worship me. I'm just a person
Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to like do my best in
Speaker 1: the world, and sometimes I'm gonna do it well, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm gonna do it not so well, and I'm
Speaker 1: just not I'm not, you know. Um. But then you know,
Speaker 1: something wonderful happened. Um. When I you know, still wasn't
Speaker 1: really making new friends. I was working in journalism. I
Speaker 1: was doing a lot of especially arts correspondence, and I
Speaker 1: was doing it anonymously because the last thing I needed
Speaker 1: as a budding journalist was people then going like, you know,
Speaker 1: ripping apart my you know, clumsy journalism in order to
Speaker 1: like define, to put something out of it that is
Speaker 1: so irrelevant, you know. So Um. One day in my
Speaker 1: inbox came this I um, this new novel that had
Speaker 1: come out by local like authors like these two best
Speaker 1: friend authors who wrote a book that was gritty and
Speaker 1: sexy and funny and sad, and I wrote all those
Speaker 1: things in the review because I really liked it. Um.
Speaker 1: And the next day, after I had turned in my review,
Speaker 1: I walked out of my apartment building and I noticed
Speaker 1: that in the diner across the street there's this flyer
Speaker 1: for this exact book that I had just reviewed, and
Speaker 1: there was going to be a book reading. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, ship, I've got nothing to do all
Speaker 1: this book reading, see what these these two dudes are
Speaker 1: actually all about. And so I showed up and they did,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're like really sweet, Like obviously one
Speaker 1: was like nerdier than the other and one was like
Speaker 1: kind of browier than the other, and and they had
Speaker 1: a great dynamic um, And I asked them, like, can
Speaker 1: I interview you guys? You know, I've never met two
Speaker 1: best friends that write books with each other, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so cute. And so they hid of me over
Speaker 1: and I did the interview. But we also ended up
Speaker 1: like having our scotch and watching Star Trek and wandering
Speaker 1: into the evening and like talking everything from like love
Speaker 1: and life to whatever. And at the end of that night,
Speaker 1: the kind of browier one named Gavin gave me this
Speaker 1: like big bear hug, and the nerdier one named Chris
Speaker 1: shook my hand and said we should be friends. And
Speaker 1: that was right after the Supreme Court had definitively acquitted me,
Speaker 1: and like for the first time, I was like, holy
Speaker 1: sh it, I can have friends like I can just
Speaker 1: I can have peers who were like friends who like
Speaker 1: and to both Gavin and Chris's beneft, like to their credit,
Speaker 1: they befriended me, and they did not google me. They
Speaker 1: didn't you know, look at all the articles and bullshit.
Speaker 1: Like they just hung out with me, and they you know,
Speaker 1: occasionally I would bring up anecdotes about some prison thing
Speaker 1: that something reminded me of and they were like totally
Speaker 1: chill about it and didn't make a big deal about it.
Speaker 1: And you know, by the time that Chris and I
Speaker 1: started dating, um, you know, he felt like he finally
Speaker 1: had to know about it, so he like read up
Speaker 1: about it and did all of that and has since
Speaker 1: become like a big advocate alongside me. Um. But like
Speaker 1: finding myself in a space where I could be me
Speaker 1: and seen as me and treated as me, like just
Speaker 1: as you know, I'm just the person, like was so refreshing. Um,
Speaker 1: Like it changed my life. Um, you feel like you've
Speaker 1: got some of yourself back totally. Yeah, Well, I've got
Speaker 1: the fact that, like I have a sense of self back,
Speaker 1: because so often I feel like I've just been like
Speaker 1: struggling against this like chorus of voices who are all
Speaker 1: authoring my experience and like I'm just trying to be
Speaker 1: a little voice. Like that's in that core worst that's
Speaker 1: having maybe some say about it, and like I've always
Speaker 1: felt so seen and I'm talking and like, you know, physically, emotionally, intellectually,
Speaker 1: so like we're talking about like sex and having a
Speaker 1: good time having sex, Like feeling seen is what makes
Speaker 1: it work for me. Wow, you know I love that.
Speaker 1: I think that's a perfect place too. And unless there's
Speaker 1: anything else you wanted to share with people or uh,
Speaker 1: stuff that you want to promote as far as work
Speaker 1: that you're doing. Question sense a humor? Do you how
Speaker 1: do you do you? Sense a humor personally saves my life? Uh,
Speaker 1: but that's also what I do for a living, so
Speaker 1: it's surrounded. Do you ever are there ever times where
Speaker 1: you and Chris are like remember that time I got
Speaker 1: accused of murder or the prison for four years after
Speaker 1: or like I don't know if you're like working out
Speaker 1: and you're like this sucks, man, but I survived like
Speaker 1: prison for four years, I guess not, Like do you
Speaker 1: ever do you ever implement that into your life? Um?
Speaker 1: So I think that I like to laugh about it,
Speaker 1: but less from like in a less obvious way like
Speaker 1: when and I've definitely here's a humor thing. Um. I
Speaker 1: was once in a comedy club when somebody was doing
Speaker 1: a bit about me and they didn't know you were there,
Speaker 1: and they didn't know I was there, and you know,
Speaker 1: they did like the really like obvious like and what's
Speaker 1: what hurt the most about it because like people make
Speaker 1: fun of me all the time whatever, Like this person
Speaker 1: had actually met me before. That's what sucked is like
Speaker 1: I had like met this person casually through another situation
Speaker 1: because I like comedy and I like to go to
Speaker 1: comedy and you know, so I've seen this guy performed
Speaker 1: before and whatever, and so he ended up doing this
Speaker 1: show like introduce using another comedian and I showed up
Speaker 1: for completely different reasons, didn't even know that he was
Speaker 1: going to be there. He didn't know I was there,
Speaker 1: and started doing a bit about meeting me and how
Speaker 1: he thought he was going to be murdered by me,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know what, you are the
Speaker 1: laziest motherfucking world. It's hackshit. Because you know what a
Speaker 1: better joke would have been is, damn, I should be
Speaker 1: friends with Amanda Knox because that means I can get
Speaker 1: away with anything and she will get blamed for its.
Speaker 1: I'd be better. But like, you know, like if you're
Speaker 1: gonna make fun of it, at least make it make
Speaker 1: it funny. Joke. Yeah, well you can get into some
Speaker 1: comedy writing now maybe if they Honestly, if you don't
Speaker 1: wanted to get in stand but I feel like you've
Speaker 1: had great material. I would have great material. You'd have
Speaker 1: some good bits to stand up. I wouldn't honestly if
Speaker 1: you did. What if I did a stand up someone
Speaker 1: pretending to be me, I mean, that'd be amazing and
Speaker 1: then just talk about cats all the time. Or if
Speaker 1: you if you're like, yeah, I'm getting in a stand
Speaker 1: up and your act just mentioned nothing of that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: just cats. People just had exclusive everyday material comedy, that'd
Speaker 1: be really fun. Well, here's a joke that I like
Speaker 1: to say. Um, I I like to say that I
Speaker 1: wasn't sleeping with Chris until after I read his book.
Speaker 1: If I were going to promote anything, I would promote
Speaker 1: The Scarlet of Reports, which they just died and were
Speaker 1: of The Encyclopedist by Gavin Kobite and Christopher Robinson. They
Speaker 1: also just had another book come out called deliver Us
Speaker 1: Very excited. That's very nice to promote someone else and stuff.
Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, you're awesome. Also listen to this podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: guys sound bite you're the ship and you're like adorable
Speaker 1: and wonderful. I'm so excited to me And if people
Speaker 1: want to contact you, is that even on the table.
Speaker 1: Do you have a you have a website dot com? Yeah,
Speaker 1: man Knox dot com. You can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at at a Mama Knox so a m m A
Speaker 1: Knox cano x um. I'm also on Instagram and if
Speaker 1: you really want to stock me on Instagram, you should
Speaker 1: actually follow my partner because he's m C Underscore carbon
Speaker 1: Um e m C Underscore. Anyway, we look for him
Speaker 1: if you find me, because I'm usually taking pictures of
Speaker 1: him and he's usually taking pictures of me. Oh you're
Speaker 1: that You're all right guy? Alright, there's that like bung
Speaker 1: the boom Boom road area. That's nice. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to talk about us and
Speaker 1: we appreciate it. This has been guys. We funck the
Speaker 1: anti slot chimming podcast. We'll talk to you next Friday
Speaker 1: up sit down. Got a little bit of leeway drinking
Speaker 1: on my Sunday. Wow, not a letter g space even
Speaker 1: on the freeway. Gotta learn on this ground. Which up
Speaker 1: to now got a little bit of room. Boom Marc
Speaker 1: Cloud have a seating re class, so a little sunshine.
Speaker 1: We don't have to look backs far because I'm living
Speaker 1: like a young king. Sunbeam Sunday has got me all
Speaker 1: my best and freshest, proud like I want to sing
Speaker 1: you something. First, thing's worthless too far up to stress
Speaker 1: like it gave me only one breath, didn't bless one
Speaker 1: left me to take a day to left. This five
Speaker 1: really sink fay de side. We should take a little
Speaker 1: ride on this cumulus puff and be present like a desert.
Speaker 1: They want to show I ain't get off my clover
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