Elizabeth Holmes Says a New York Times Quote Was Wrong, in New Documentary

Elizabeth Holmes tries to convince Nathan Fielder in the new documentary You Can See Everything that The New York Times got one of her quotes wrong. The film, co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, Variety reported on 23 October 2026.

The quote in dispute comes from a 2023 Times profile titled "Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth." In it, Holmes is quoted as saying: "They're not playing me. They're playing a character I created." She was talking about actors who have portrayed her, including Amanda Seyfried in Hulu's The Dropout. Holmes now says she said something different: "They're playing a character they created."

The gap is small, but it changes the meaning. One version says Holmes built the public image herself. The other says someone else built it.

Her partner, Billy Evans, says in the film that he taped her interview with the Times. The film does not show that recording as evidence that she was misquoted, according to Variety's account.

The Times reporter behind the piece is Amy Chozick. She told the filmmakers the remark came during a walk outside a rented beach home in California. Evans was at the gym at the time. Chozick said she had just told Holmes that Jennifer Lawrence had pulled out of playing her in a film, and Holmes made the comment soon after.

Chozick said she wrote Holmes's exact words in her notebook while Holmes walked a couple of steps ahead. She was not recording audio for that part of the conversation, only taking handwritten notes. She also said she usually keeps reporter notebooks for a couple of years, and she did not keep this one. "Of course, now I really wish I'd kept that notebook," she said.

Chozick also denied Evans's claim in the film that he recorded all of their conversations. She said she spent several days with Holmes and Evans, always on the record, including formal interviews at the kitchen table and on the couch when both sides were recording.

An intertitle in the film says Fielder and Oppenheim reached Chozick. According to the film, she stood by her reporting but did not provide evidence of the quote.

The New York Times has responded firmly. In an Insider piece published on 22 October 2026, it said that its reporter went over her interview notes with her editors, and they confirmed that the story's quote was accurate. The Insider piece, titled "Elizabeth Holmes Quote Drama," explains how the quote came to be.

The quote is not the only thing at stake. The 2023 profile describes Holmes replying "almost reflectively" when she delivered the line. The sentence that follows it begins, "So, why did she create that public persona..." The film's central scene asks viewers to weigh the two versions of a single sentence, with the people involved on each side.

Holmes was convicted of fraud in 2022 over Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded. She has since spoken publicly about her life and image, and the documentary follows that effort. Neither the film nor the Times has offered a recording of the disputed moment, and the notebook that might have settled the wording is gone.

For now, the two accounts stand side by side. Holmes says the words were different. The Times and its reporter say they were not.