Fact can be stranger than fiction, and few public figures have proven this more recently than Elizabeth Holmes. The investor once hailed as the “next Steve Jobs” and a revolutionary in the field of medical science was sentenced to eleven years in prison on Tuesday.
Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud in Nov. 2022. Per the prosecution, she raised millions of dollars from investors by misleading them about the capability of the tech she was making. She will serve her time in a minimum-security prison camp in Texas known as FPC Bryan. It’s a just conclusion to Holmes’ story, which was dramatized in the Amanda Seyfried-led miniseries The Dropout (2022).
Seyfried won the Primetime Emmy Award for her compelling performance as Holmes, so fans were justifiably curious as to how she felt about the sentencing. Seyfried appeared on Good Morning America shortly after the news was made public, and she made it clear that her sympathies were with Holmes’ children, William and Invicta.
“I feel for those kids. Those two kids. They’re hanging in the balance here,” she told the hosts. “As a parent, I’m just like… As a mom, I’m just like — I don’t know… Life’s not fair. But in a lot of ways, it’s fair for her, in particular.”
This is not the first time that Holmes’ children were brought into the public conversation. In March 2023, Holmes tried to delay her prison sentence on the grounds that she had just given birth to her youngest child, Invicta. The appeal was denied the following month on the grounds that she failed to raise a “substantial question of law or fact’ that is ‘likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial on all counts,” according to district court judge Edward Davila.
The alignment of Seyfried’s Good Morning America appearance with Holmes’ sentencing was purely coincidental. The actress was booked to promote her new limited series, The Crowded Room, opposite Tom Holland, so it was evident that she was not planning on discussing the inspiration for her award-winning role.
The public fascination with Holmes led to several Hollywood projects receiving the green light. There were plans for a film titled Bad Blood that would be directed by Adam McKay and star Jennifer Lawrence, but it got stuck in production hell and Lawrence eventually backed out. Then there was the aforementioned Dropout, which was originally set to star Kate McKinnon, but went forward with Seyfried when the former signed on to Joe Exotic.
Seyfried was praised for her ability to emulate Holmes’ trademark low voice and wide eyes without making her feel like a caricature. The one person who wasn’t impressed by the performance? Holmes herself. In a recent New York Times profile, Holmes shot down the notion that The Dropout accurately captured her because she was, in her business life, playing a character.
“They’re not playing me,” she explained. They’re playing a character I created. Maybe people picked up on that not being authentic, since it wasn’t.” Regardless of whether she was playing a character or being truer to herself than she let on, Holmes will be paying for her crimes for years to come.
