Journalists, columnists and more criticized the New York Times profile on Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, calling the piece "embarrassing" for the outlet.
The Sunday profile, headlined, "Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth," said that she had adopted a new persona, "devoted mother." Holmes is described as "modest but mesmerizing" and "impossible not to believe" when in her presence by reporter Amy Chozick. The story delves into her home life with her two children and partner Billy Evans and how she's moving on after her stunning downfall from Silicon Valley wunderkind to disgraced felon.
A Stanford dropout, Holmes charmed journalists, politicians and investors as she raised hundreds of millions of dollars for her ambitious biotech start-up Theranos. The company claimed to have reinvented modern health care with a machine that could do complex tests on just a single drop of blood and was valued in the billions, but Holmes and her business partner – and former boyfriend – Ramesh Balwani were eventually exposed as manipulative liars.
Theranos' blood-testing technology simply didn't work, and Holmes was convicted on multiple fraud counts and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Her deceit, first exposed by a Wall Street Journal reporter, has been a subject of public fascination, spawning movies, podcasts and books, and made her a case study for the culture of "too good to be true" in Silicon Valley.
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Breaking her silence to the media, Holmes admitted to Chozick to not being "authentic," such as her fake deep voice.
"Nice to be a pretty white lady working your charm on a nyt reporter," journalist Soledad O'Brien wrote about the Times story.
"Coming in N Y Times: ‘My Friend Bernie Madoff: Cold-Blooded Crook Who Defrauded 37,000 People or Affable Schnorrer Who Made Mistakes?’" Author Joyce Carol Oates wrote.
Scott Budman, a reporter for NBC News who covered Theranos and Holmes' trial, reacted to the story as well and said that the last line of it was "wrong."
"It is possible to be in her presence and not completely believe her. Questioning is what we do for a living," he said.
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The last line of the profile read, "Ms. Holmes is unlike anyone I’ve ever met — modest but mesmerizing. If you are in her presence, it is impossible not to believe her, not to be taken with her and be taken in by her."
The story also relayed an anecdote from Holmes that claimed an emergency room doctor treating her ill toddler told Holmes, "You look a lot like that horrible woman," and eventually apologized to her.
Chozick wrote that Holmes and Evans invited her to stay as they were getting ready to host some friends.
"They repeatedly invited me to come back, to bring my family. We could all go to the zoo together," she wrote.
She added that she was "swept up" with Holmes and called her "gentle and charismatic."
"I was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person. She’s gentle and charismatic, in a quiet way. My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling me (and I quote), ‘Amy Chozick, you got rolled!’ I vigorously disagreed! You don’t know her like I do! But then, something very strange happened. I worked my way through a list of Ms. Holmes’s friends, family and longtime supporters, whom she and Mr. Evans suggested I speak to. One of these friends said Ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at Theranos and didn’t deserve a lengthy prison sentence. Then, this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe everything Ms. Holmes says," the profile said.
"If you hate Elizabeth Holmes, you probably think her feigned perma-hoarseness was part of an elaborate scheme to defraud investors. If you are a person who is sympathetic to Ms. Holmes, then the James Earl Jones inflection was a sign of the impossible gymnastics that female founders must perform to be taken seriously. If you spend time with Ms. Holmes, as I did, then you might come away like me, and think that, as with many things about Elizabeth Holmes, it was both. Either way, even Mr. Evans agrees, the voice was real weird," the Times' profile read.
Axios' Sam Baker reacted to several paragraphs in the profile and said, "you also might be inclined to believe this not because you ‘hate Elizabeth Holmes,’ but rather because she did in fact perpetrate an elaborate scheme to defraud investors, as established by a mountain of bulletproof journalism, federal investigations and a criminal trial."
Holmes recently delayed her prison report date with a last-minute appeal. She had been set to report for incarceration on April 27.
The New York Times didn't respond to a request for comment.
Fox News' David Rutz contributed to this report.
