The world knows Elizabeth Holmes as the disgraced Theranos founder donning red lipstick and black turtlenecks.
In a recent interview, Holmes, who’s now going by “Liz” and is a mother of two, told The New York Times that her former persona wasn’t “authentic” — but also left the paper wondering how much of their conversation was genuine.
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Holmes received an 11-year prison sentence last November following conviction on multiple charges of defrauding Theranos investors; she was set to report to prison on April 27, but a last-minute appeal kept her out on bail, per CNN Business.
In the series of interviews with NYT, Holmes and her husband Billy Evans, a hotel heir and tech entrepreneur, look back at her time as Theranos’ founder with mixed emotions. At one point, Evans agrees “the voice was real weird,” eliciting “the slightest of giggles” from Holmes.
Holmes also discussed attending Burning Man with Evans and burning a tribute to Theranos, recalling “an incredible sense of grief because I’d given everything to it, my whole life, since I’d been 18.”
Additionally, once a date for the trial had been set in 2019, Holmes and Evans took a six-month trip in their RV, “sleeping in campgrounds and Walmart parking lots” across the country as they worked on her legal defense.
Holmes seems convinced that had she remained outside of the spotlight and focused on her work at Theranos, she would still be on track to change the world — an idea the NYT called “divorced from reality.”
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