Amanda Knox Almost Threw Up Seeing Clip of Movie About Her Life

Amanda Knox was so upset seeing actress Hayden Panettiere play her in a clip from the upcoming Lifetime TV movie that she almost threw up and fainted, according to her stepfather and attorneys.

According to her stepfather, Knox, 23, told her family during her recent weekly phone call home that she became physically ill watching the clip on TV in the Italian prison. She is serving a 26-year sentence for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher. The case is under appeal in Italy.

"She was so amazingly shocked by it," Chris Mellas, Knox's stepfather, told ABC News today. "She said she literally started hyperventilating. She thought she was going to throw up."

Video from the trailer for "Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy" came out on the Internet recently and shows Panettiere, as Knox, brandishing a knife in the film. One of the key arguments made by Knox's defense team as well as outside experts is that there is no forensic evidence definitively linking the knife, the murder weapon, to Knox.

In another scene, the actress portraying Kercher is seen in her bra being pinned down by two men and yelling for help. Both the Knox and Kercher families have vowed to fight the release of the film, scheduled for Feb. 21 on Lifetime.

The clip did not appear to be available on the Lifetime website today. Repeated calls to Lifetime's media relations department by AOL News did not yield a response. The only clip that appeared to be available today online was in Italian.

Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted along with a third man, Rudy Guede, of murdering Kercher, 21, in Perugia, Italy. Kercher, of Coulsdon, England, and Knox, from Seattle, were in Italy for a year of study and shared a house.


Maria del Grosso, one of Knox's Italian lawyers, said the defense team has also demanded that the trailer be removed from Lifetime's website.

Her lawyers say the movie gives an "evil opinion" of Knox and could jeopardize the young woman's right to a fair trial in Italy.

Del Grosso told AOL News today that she visited Knox last week before she had seen the movie clip and she was already worried about it.

"She was very sad and distressed," del Grosso said. "She can't believe they have made this film and are calling it 'based on a true story' because we are having a new trial. Most people don't even know the true story yet. But the film makes her look guilty."

Mellas said that Knox was near tears during her phone call home, explaining to her family how bizarre it was to see Panettiere portray someone who "looked like her, dressed like her, playing her life."

He said Knox tried to explain to her family how frustrated she felt at having no control over her life and how her life is being portrayed.

Mellas said that because Knox doesn't normally read newspapers or watch TV, she does not understand the magnitude of her notoriety, which made seeing the Lifetime trailer even more devastating. The case made headlines in Italy, the U.S. and Britain, where tabloids dubbed her "Foxy Knoxy."

Kercher's father, John, said earlier this week that he was appalled by the film, Time reported.

"It's so awful what these film people have done," he said.

"Your imagination runs riot as it is about what happened, but to actually see it like this is very different and very distressing. I was told the original brief and synopsis of the film was to take it up to the point of the killing but not actually show the killing itself. It's obvious from these pictures they are showing the killing."