In the documentary “You Can See Everything,” Elizabeth Holmes tries to convince Nathan Fielder that she was misquoted by the New York Times.
“They’re not playing me. They’re playing a character I created,” the disgraced Theranos founder reportedly said in a 2023 profile. She was talking about actors who portrayed her in movies and TV shows, like Amanda Seyfried in Hulu’s “The Dropout.” Holmes disputed the quote when the article was published, arguing that what she actually said was: “They are playing a character they created. »
Fielder is fascinated by the quote controversy because he thinks it is part of a larger debate: Is the media out to distort Holmes’ image, or is Holmes deluding himself about the way she presents herself?
The documentary provides no answer to the question. Holmes’ partner, Billy Evans, says in the film that he recorded her interview with the Times, but he is unable to prove that it was misquoted. And an intertitle card at the end of the film indicates that Fielder and his co-director Lance Oppenheim were able to reach the New York Times reporter, who stood by her reporting but also did not provide proof of the quote. The newspaper claims that at the time, the reporter “reviewed her interview notes with her editors and they confirmed that the article’s quote was accurate. We relayed this to Holmes and considered it resolved.”
Journalist Amy Chozick has now spoken out about the brouhaha to the New York Times itself. She said the controversial quote was said while Holmes and Chozick were walking outside their rented California beach house and Evans was at the gym.
“As we were walking, I told Holmes that I had heard that Jennifer Lawrence had recently backed out of portraying her in a movie. She looked at me and said, ‘They’re not playing me. They’re playing a character I created,'” Chozick told the Times. “As she took a few steps forward, I wrote down her exact words in my notebook.”
She added: “Every night when I’m reporting, I go through my notebook and put a star next to anything that I think is a particularly important moment or quote, highlight it and mark that page with a Post-it. That quote was highlighted and the page had a Post-it.”
Chozick did not record the audio of this part of the interview; she was just taking notes by hand. She deplored the fact that she had not kept the notebook and therefore had no concrete proof of the exchange.
“A lot of people’s most honest reflections come when I turn off my recorder and just take notes,” Chozick said. “I wasn’t going to put a recorder in front of Holmes while we walked on the beach. I take notes constantly, to jot down important quotes and details and to incorporate my impressions in real time. I usually keep my reporter’s notebooks for a few years before getting rid of them. My editors confirmed the quote to me in 2023, and I thought the problem was resolved. I didn’t think the quote would be part of a documentary years later. Of course, now I would really like it to do. I kept this notebook.
Chozick denied Evans’ claim in “You Can See Everything” that he recorded all of their conversations. “I spent several days with Holmes and Evans, still officially,” she said. “We did several formal interviews at the kitchen table and on the couch when we were both recording the conversations. But many of the most revealing moments occurred when the recorders were turned off.”
When asked why readers should trust the quote’s accuracy in the absence of proof, Chozick responded, “That’s a good question,” but explained how much Holmes spoke to the persona she created at Theranos, which was defined by black turtlenecks, red lipstick and a deep voice. Speaking about his public persona, Holmes told Chozick: “Maybe people understood that it wasn’t authentic, since it wasn’t.” She did not dispute this quote, nor the surrounding context.
“My late mentor, David Carr, used to say that writing a profile is like holding a mirror up to a person. They don’t always like what they see. I’ve profiled some of the most controversial figures of our time, and I’m always surprised by the details or quotes that touch on them,” Chozick said. “But this one stood out to me because Holmes spoke openly, for several days, about the persona she created at Theranos. It was the first interview she’d given since the implosion of the blood-testing company, and she looked and sounded like a completely different person than the public persona people remembered. How and why she created that persona was a topic we returned to several times.”
Gn entert
