Activist Amanda Knox has reignited her long-running feud with actor Matt Damon, firing back after his comments on cancel culture struck a nerve.
During a recent interview appearance alongside his The Rip co-star Ben Affleck, Damon argued that public ostracization through cancel culture can feel worse than prison, claiming that “people would have preferred to go to jail” if given the chance.
Highlights
- Amanda Knox reignited her feud with Matt Damon after his cancel culture and prison comments, drawing on her own experience of wrongful imprisonment.
- Damon’s remarks on Joe Rogan’s podcast sparked backlash online, with critics arguing that public backlash can’t be compared to the lasting trauma and stigma of prison.
- The clash also reignited conversation around Damon’s 2021 film ‘Stillwater,’ with Knox accusing the actor of profiting from a story that distorted her life without her consent.
Knox, who previously slammed the actor in 2021 for starring in a film inspired by her wrongful conviction and imprisonment, hit back at his remarks, sparking a heated online debate.
“You can't say anything without someone getting upset,” reacted one social media user.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s comments on cancel culture during their appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast struck a nerve with Amanda Knox
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During the January 16 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were promoting their new Netflix film, The Rip, which was released the same day.
While discussing various topics, host Rogan touched on modern-day cancel culture, which both actors agreed has become a serious concern.
Arguing that public cancellation “never ends,” Damon said it can follow someone “to the grave.”
He told Joe, “I bet some of those people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever and then come out and say, ‘No, but I paid my debt. Like, we're done. Like, can we be done?”
Image credits: joerogan
“Like, the thing about getting kind of excoriated publicly like that, it just never ends.”
Affleck echoed Damon’s sentiments, saying, “Maybe because part of us is saying 'it's not me,' So if you can point the finger, everyone's looking over there. We feel safer, you know?”
He added, “And to take any forgiveness out of it is a really f**ked up thing, because then it makes it impossible to actually go, ‘All right, yeah, I did that... That was wrong. I get it,’ You know, because it doesn't matter.”
Image credits: amamaknox
“Once you've said you've done it, you become like an outcast."
The comments did not sit well with American activist and author Amanda Knox, who directly expressed her disagreement in an X post.
However, Knox did not criticize Affleck and mentioned only Damon in the caption of her post, writing, “Another thing Matt Damon could have run by me before putting out into the world.”
Damon claimed that if people who were canceled were given a choice, “those people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever”
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She also attached a Variety post reporting on The Martian star’s comments about cancel culture.
Rather than supporting her stance, many commenters harshly pushed back against Knox.
One user wrote, “Why on earth would he have to run anything by her??? I don’t know what she thinks she is. We know what we think she is.”
Another commented, “Don’t get it. Please explain why Matt Damon would feel inclined to run something by Amanda Knox first.”
Image credits: Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images
“Amanda is unfamiliar with the word some!” added a third.
Knox replied to several of the comments, drawing on her four years of wrongful imprisonment in Italy to argue that incarceration is never something that happens “in secret” and carries permanent social stigma and long-lasting trauma.
She wrote, “You're missing the point. You don't get to go to prison in secret. It comes with its own stigma and lasting trauma. You don't just get to ‘be done with it,’ personally or socially.”
Image credits: Tiziana Fabi - Pool/Getty Images
When a social media user pointed out that some individuals who have been publicly canceled have taken their own lives, Knox responded by noting that "people commit s**cide in prison, too.”
For those unfamiliar with Knox’s case, in 2007, she and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were accused and wrongfully convicted in connection with the m*rder of her British exchange roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy.
In 2009, Knox was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Sollecito received a 25-year sentence.
“Amanda, you need to call his a** out!” wrote one supporter, as many critics backed Knox’s stance and criticized Damon for weighing in on an “unrelatable” topic
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However, in 2011, both convictions were overturned on appeal due to flawed DNA evidence and what judges described as “stunning flaws” in the investigation.
Knox returned to the United States later that year, and in 2015, she and Sollecito were definitively acquitted by Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation, which ruled they were innocent of any involvement.
Since her acquittal, Knox has become an outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform and media ethics.
She has also penned two memoirs about her experiences, Waiting to Be Heard and Free: My Search for Meaning.
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Some netizens questioned why Knox specifically called out Damon and not Affleck, despite both actors weighing in on the discussion.
One user expressed, “Never mentions what Affleck said…”
The reason may stem from Knox’s history with the Oscar winner, which dates back to 2021, when Damon starred in Stillwater, a film inspired by her case.
At the time, Knox slammed Damon and the film’s creators, accusing them of distorting her life story for profit without her consent.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
She alleged the filmmakers “ripped off” her story while “fictionalizing away” her innocence.
In the movie, the character inspired by Knox is portrayed as having some culpability in the crime, an implication Knox has argued reinforced public perceptions of her as “guilty and untrustworthy.”
At the time, Damon stated that the film was only “loosely based” on her case, adding that the team behind the project never discussed Knox specifically during filming, as it was intended to be a fictional exploration.
Amanda criticized Damon’s opinions by drawing on her own experience of wrongful conviction and spending nearly four years behind bars
Image credits: amamaknox
However, in a 2021 interview with Variety, Knox pushed back on that claim, saying, “I don’t think that the filmmakers can honestly say that they went far enough away from my case so that it wouldn’t be recognizably my case.
“And I think that that’s clear in all of the coverage where everyone’s like, ‘Oh, this is recognizably the Amanda Knox case.’ And from that audiences can then draw conclusions about me, whether or not those conclusions are accurate or not.”
She concluded, “And then Matt Damon and the director can walk away with a great story in their pocket, but meanwhile, I’m still living with the consequences of people thinking that I am somehow involved in this crime that I am not involved in.”
Some social media users supported Knox’s latest move to publicly call out Damon on X, citing that “Matt Damon speaks on an issue he knows absolutely nothing about.”
Others echoed the sentiment, writing, “These Hollywood elites have no idea of the trauma Amanda Knox went through during her bogus persecution.”
“So Matt wants to be canceled. No problem.”
“If you're an entertainer and you get canceled… I’m sure it does feel like jail… But if you’ve been in jail, his words seem a little silly in comparison,” wrote one netizen
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