Viewers of the hotly anticipated new documentary about convicted Theranos boss Elizabeth Holmes will be left with a host of questions.
And not least among them is bound to be this: Why on earth did her partner, Billy Evans, the father of her two children, invite cameras into the most intimate corners of their family life just days before Holmes went to jail?
Widely judged a cinematic tour de force, You Can See Everything has been described as a ‘psychodrama circus’ by Variety. Another leading critic dubbed it a ‘stupefying and glorious destabilizing hall of psychological mirrors’ from which no one emerges unscathed.
Yet far from regretting an unfathomable decision, Evans defiantly insists he is happy with his choice.
‘Judge me. Hate me. Think I’m an idiot. That’s okay. Watch it and make up your own mind,’ he said in a stirring defense of his cooperation with director Nathan Fielder.
‘I know why I made the choices I made.’
Holmes, of course, is the Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose $9 billion blood-testing company, Theranos, collapsed amid revelations that its technology had never worked, inspiring the hit podcast Bad Blood and the Hulu series The Dropout starring Amanda Seyfried.
Convicted of defrauding investors in 2022, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, and her spectacular downfall continues to grip America and the world beyond.
Convicted of defrauding investors in 2022, Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison
The new documentary has people wondering why her partner Billy Evans invited cameras into the most intimate corners of their family life before Holmes started her prison term
Widely judged a cinematic tour de force, You Can See Everything has been described as a ‘psychodrama circus’ by Variety
Even the trailer for You Can See Everything has gone viral for its uncomfortable close-ups of her big, unblinking blue eyes.
Now, in a rare interview, one of his first since news of the documentary became public, Evans has insisted that his motive for letting the cameras in was to help Holmes and to support a relationship about to undergo the most extraordinary ordeal.
‘Liz was about to disappear into federal prison for years,’ he says. ‘Our kids were babies. She’d spent years as a character other people created. I thought there should at least be an honest record of who she actually was at that moment.
‘I knew an honest record might make me look bad sometimes. That was the price of it being real.
‘More than anything, I admire Liz for having the courage to be that vulnerable at the hardest moment of her life.’
Today, Holmes, 42, is serving out her sentence – reduced by one year under the First Step act for non-violent, first-time offenders and eligible for early release for good conduct – at a minimum-security federal prison in Bryan, Texas, apart not just from Billy but from their children William, five, and Ivy, three. They believe that ‘Mommy is at work.’
Lasting nearly three hours, the documentary follows the family in the run-up to her imprisonment in 2023, capturing a relationship which began right in the middle of her remarkable fall from grace.
The choice of comedian and filmmaker Nathan Fielder, best known for creating socially awkward and satirical projects which blur the line between fact and fiction, has baffled many onlookers.
Fielder and the filmmaker Lance Oppenheim have since described disagreements with Evans and a breakdown in communication.
The trailer for the film has gone viral for its uncomfortable close-ups of Holmes’ big, unblinking blue eyes
The choice of comedian and filmmaker Nathan Fielder, best known for creating socially awkward and satirical projects which blur the line between fact and fiction, has many baffled
Lasting nearly three hours, the movie follows the family in the run-up to Holmes’ imprisonment in 2023
Some viewers and commentators see Evans as controlling, but he says: ‘If I wanted to control the story, I chose the worst filmmaker on Earth to give unlimited access to. We picked Nathan Fielder precisely because we couldn’t control him.’
Despite their public falling out, Evans, who has yet to see the documentary, goes so far as to praise the filmmakers, saying: ‘I admire Nathan, Lance and [production company] A24 for taking the risk of making something this ambitious without knowing where the story would go.’
Evans’s relationship with Holmes has been the subject of intense public scrutiny since it first began. They met in October 2017, at a charity event in San Francisco. Theranos was already under investigation and Holmes’s once-lauded career had imploded.
Evans, whose family owns a successful hospitality business, says: ‘I expected to be there for maybe five minutes. My friend introduced me to Liz. She was wearing a hat and sunglasses, so I didn’t recognize her at first. But we ended up talking for hours.’
He had read newspaper reports about her and Theranos – and was confused to find himself rather taken with the person in front of him.
‘I don’t know if it was love at first sight,’ he says. ‘After our first conversation, I knew she was going to be important to me in some way. It is hard not to have concerns and questions when everything I read said one thing and then my personal experience with her was completely different.’
For six months they were friends, each dating other people. Eventually, he says, ‘I realized that I wished the people I was dating were more like her. So I was saying to myself: “You idiot! Why won’t you date her?”‘
‘The shift was pretty organic from there. We already spent every moment together when we were both in the Bay. One day I told her: “I am telling people that you are my girlfriend now. Is that OK?”‘
Holmes is serving time at a minimum-security federal prison in Bryan, Texas, away from her children who believe that ‘Mommy is at work’
Evans had read newspaper reports about Holmes and Theranos – and was confused to find himself rather taken with the person in front of him when the two met at an event in 2017
When the two were introduced, Theranos was already under investigation and Holmes’s once-lauded career had imploded
His friends were skeptical. Evans came from a prosperous family; there were easier paths he might have taken.
‘Most of them thought, before they met her, that I was crazy,’ he admits. ‘But after they met her, they each developed relationships with her. She became part of family and close friends. There was no division about her. It just made sense.’
Shortly after their relationship began, they were catapulted into the media circus of her trial. Evans recalls paparazzi, drones over the house and threats to the couple. Holmes was found guilty of four counts – one count of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud; Evans continues to fight the conviction on a daily basis.
Some have seen their decision to have children during this time as one calculated to elicit sympathy for Holmes.
‘For me, it is simple,’ he says. ‘You find someone you love; you want to have children together.’
He describes the moment he knew she was the one: ‘I wanted our kids to be more like her than me, that’s when I knew. Wills is so much like his mom. He has an enormous heart, and he isn’t afraid to show it. He sees a kid falling, he immediately runs to help him and give him a hug.’
Evans says that, since Holmes’s imprisonment, she writes to him and to their children every day. Those close to the couple talk about a genuine love story.
‘The letters are so beautiful. They are handwritten,’ he says. ‘She cuts up pictures she finds in magazines and hand draws pictures. Wills is into animals now. She is doing research with him. She is trying to be part of his learning from afar.’
Evans says that, since Holmes’s imprisonment, she writes to him and their children every day
Those close to the couple talk about a genuine love story
Evans’ friends were skeptical of the relationship at first – coming from a prosperous family, there were easier paths he might have taken
‘For me, it is simple,’ Billy says. ‘You find someone you love; you want to have children together’
Evans now runs a technology company while organizing a life around school runs and work. When asked how he manages everything, he is surprisingly frank.
‘I am self-aware enough to recognize how privileged I am,’ he says. ‘I have the ability to raise my kids in a safe environment, put food on their table, have help from family and friends.
‘I have lots of respect for parents who are facing the same or similar situations, raising their kids alone. I mean people who lost their partners, are single parents or like me, their partner is incarcerated. I don’t take for granted that I still have a partner and that she makes every effort to be involved as much as she possibly can.’
Families from both sides of the relationship weigh in. There is childcare. The routine he describes is busy, but deliberately ordinary. Reading practice in the morning. Packed lunches. School. Work. Home for dinner.
‘I wake up with the kids early in the morning. We feed the dog, have breakfast then Wills and I sit down for a game of chess. We pack up their lunch, and we drop them at school before nine. I go to work until five, maybe six. Then I go home, we have dinner.
‘We play in the backyard and play make-believe, we color, we read books. I am very intentional about putting the phone away during this time. This time is 100 percent focused on them; while their mom is not physically present with us, I need to give them all of me.
‘At the end of each day we read their mom’s letters before bed. The letters are just incredible testaments of her love and longing.’
The children visit their mother and, he says, he and Holmes have tried to make the partings as painless as possible.
‘We choose to give them strength. There are big hugs, always a focus on staying in the present moment, that we are together. When it’s time to leave, we are not saying long goodbyes. It’s always, “We’ll see you next week.”‘
He says that for Holmes, missing out on being with her family is incredibly difficult. ‘The single most difficult aspect of incarceration is being away from our children, especially when they are sick. She feels so deeply and that pain is nearly too much to bear.’
And for him? His answer is very short at first: ‘To see her in pain.’ After a pause, he adds: ‘I can’t just give her a hug. I can’t be with her at three in the morning when our kids are sick. And there are so many little memories that I share with her via phone calls and emails. I can’t wait for Liz to come home, so we can experience just the small moments of everyday life together again.’
Evans says that for Holmes, missing out on being with her family is incredibly difficult
‘I have lots of respect for parents who are facing the same or similar situations, raising their kids alone,’ he says
As the 42-year-old Holmes serves her sentence behind bars, her children believe that ‘mommy is at work’
Evans continues to fight Holmes’ conviction on a daily basis
I ask who is stronger in the relationship. ‘If you ask Liz, she would say it is me. If you ask me, I would say it is Liz. We make each other stronger. When one is down the other one is up.’
On October 7, the ninth anniversary of the day they met, Holmes quietly arranged a surprise through friends.
‘Even from prison, she found a way to make the day special. I came home to all my favorite Burmese food: tea leaf salad, noodles. There were sunflowers on the table, the same ones I used to bring her for no reason at all, or on days when I knew she needed it. For dessert, she’d arranged for friends to bring chocolate-chip cookies and vanilla ice cream. And she wrote me a letter that made me feel whole again.
‘Between calls, I think of things I want to tell her a hundred times a day. Something happens with the kids, or I see something beautiful or absurd that I know we’d laugh about together, and she’s always the first person I want to tell. She’s my best friend. I miss sharing those moments.
‘Nine years later, after all this pain and nearly three and a half years apart, we’ve never stopped choosing each other. This isn’t some love story we’ve had to put on hold. We’re living it every day. We’ve missed moments together with Wills and Ivy that we’ll never get back. But through all of it, we’re closer than we’ve ever been.’
I ask what he imagines doing first when she comes home. ‘We will go home and talk with our kids. We will stay up all night, make a fire. And I will hold her in my arms. I will find peace again. And then we will wake up and live the rest of our lives together as it’s meant to be.’
If he’d known where their lives would lead, would he still have chosen her? His answer is immediate.
‘Knowing what I know now, I would still make this decision again a million times. I feel so insanely blessed to have her and these beautiful kids together.’
He is aware that viewers of You Can See Everything may draw very different conclusions about the couple after seeing the film. But, he says, ‘The only question I’d ask anyone watching is: what would you do to protect someone you love?’
Daphne Barak is a senior interviewer and documentary film maker. Daphne is also a cancer survivor who has a fast-growing charity with the University of California, San Diego.
