Model-turned-activist Amber Rose was thrilled to share her story with exoneree Amanda Knox for her new series, The Scarlet Letter Reports.
Knox, now 30, was accused and acquitted twice of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. Her sexuality was investigated by Italian police as if it had a bearing on the case and she was dubbed "Foxy Knoxy" by the media. Despite being deemed guilty by public opinion, Knox was acquitted of all charges. Ten years later, Knox decided to make a new name for herself as host The Scarlet Letter Reports, a show that gives a platform to women who have been vilified by the media.
One of those women was Amber Rose, who knows about slut-shaming. She joined the SlutWalk in 2015 to bring awareness the social injustices and try end slut-shaming. Rose has been shamed by ex's like rappers Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa, who called her derogatory names after they split.
After watching Knox's Netflix documentary, which originally debuted in November 2016, Rose knew that she wanted to speak with the Seattle native for The Scarlet Letter Reports. "She's a really amazing girl. She's super smart, sweet, well-spoken and she's fun," Rose told Newsweek about Knox Thursday. "I was like, 'Hell yeah I want to talk to her.' I was excited."
Since the #MeToo movement started, women have been taken seriously in a way they never were before. If Kercher's murder were to have happened in 2018 instead of 2007, it's unlikely Knox would have been examined the same way in the media, Rose said.
"If this would have happened now, it wouldn't have went down like that," Rose said about the accusations against Knox. "As women, we're way more outspoken now and we understand what slut-shaming is."
Knox was painted as a sex deviant who orchestrated a rape game gone wrong by Italian prosecutors, but what she did or didn't do in the bedroom shouldn't have made a difference. "It doesn't matter who you're sleeping with," Rose said. "It doesn't make you a murderer."
The Scarlet Letter Reports, a Broadly show, premiered on Facebook Watch Wednesday.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Maria Vultaggio is a Brooklynite originally hailing from Long Island. She studied English at Stony Brook University and interned at the ... Read more
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