bad blood

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes’s Family Swears Her Deep Voice Is Real

Now that HBO’s The Inventor has brought chatter about Holmes’s voice to the fore, her family wants to debunk the conspiracy theories—but is this enough to dissuade the masses?
elizabeth holmes
By David Paul Morris/Getty.

It’s hard to say which physical attributes of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes stand out most: her turtlenecks; her ginormous, unblinking eyes; her perma-red lips. There’s a lot to work with. But one thing is for certain: when she starts talking, everyone notices her voice. It’s deep, almost impossibly so, which has inspired conspiracy theories that the allegedly fraudulent Silicon Valley figure purposefully began speaking that way in order to be taken seriously by her heavy-hitting peers in the male-dominated tech industry. A scam within a scam, if you will. There are Reddit threads and YouTube videos dedicated to picking apart her interviews, homing in on moments where it seems like she slips up and speaks in her, allegedly, naturally higher voice. The way Holmes talks has also been a sticking point in both ABC’s podcast about her, The Dropout, and the HBO documentary The Inventor, which premiered this week. Holmes herself hasn’t commented on the conspiracies since Theranos imploded, but now her family has decided to weigh in on her behalf.

Holmes’s family members told TMZ that her voice really is that deep. They said most people in her family have lower voices, “including her grandmother,” TMZ notes (though the outlet doesn’t say exactly which family members weighed in). In instances in which Holmes’s voice sounds higher—i.e., when she slips up, according to conspiracy theorists—that’s actually happening because she’s excited or passionate, they said.

Holmes has been everywhere in the news over the last few weeks, in part due to The Dropout and The Inventor (and extensive V.F. reporting, if you want to fall down the rabbit hole). Theranos, the company she founded that was supposed to revolutionize the blood-testing industry, has gone belly-up because it turns out all the miraculous technology its founder was touting apparently never really worked. Holmes has since been indicted by the Department of Justice on charges of wire fraud. She has pleaded not guilty.

Through it all, Holmes has become known as a particularly notorious scammer in an era overtly obsessed with scams. Even her aesthetic was scammy, a knockoff Steve Jobs flow topped with a telling hairstyle. Her voice was the bizarro cherry on top, an instantly memeable part of her presentation. The parodies have started rolling in, but the perfect one has already been released. Take it away, Tavi Gevinson.

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