Where is Elizabeth Holmes now? Life after The Dropout
The college dropout-turned-self-made billionaire promised to revolutionise the medical world, but has since been convicted on four counts of fraud.
Drama miniseries The Dropout received awards buzz and positive reviews when it first debuted on Disney Plus back in 2022, and now more UK viewers are about to get a chance to watch the series on BBC One.
The drama charts the dramatic real world rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, who was once ranked by Forbes as the youngest self-made billionaire on the basis of a $9 billion valuation of her tech company Theranos.
However, this ranking was based on Theranos's apparent 'revolutionary' blood tests, which it turned out didn't actually work.
The Dropout chronicles Holmes's childhood in Texas, her early days as a Stanford student, how she founded a tech company at 19 years old which came to be known as Theranos and, crucially, how she came to be convicted of fraud – read about the bizarre true story behind The Dropout here.
It’s not the first time that the collapse of Theranos has been chronicled. It was actually a book that first revealed the scale of the scam titled John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies of a Silicon Valley Startup.
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Carreyrou’s book was followed by a podcast of the same name. Since then, there’s been ABC’s podcast The Dropout, an HBO series called The Inventor and there's even a movie called Bad Blood on the horizon from writer/director Adam McKay.
But what happened after Theranos folded, and is Holmes in prison now?
Read on to find out about the disgraced entrepreneur’s fate as well as Sunny Balwani, Holmes' former boyfriend and business partner who is played by Naveen Andrews in The Dropout.
Where is Elizabeth Holmes now?
In January 2022, a California jury found Elizabeth Holmes guilty on four out of seven counts of criminal fraud against Theranos investors, with the jury unable to reach an unanimous verdict on the other three charges. Holmes was acquitted on four additional charges related to patient fraud.
Holmes faced up to two decades in prison, as well as restitution costs for her crimes, but her sentencing wasn't determined until November 2022.
On 18th November 2022, she was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison, with the sentence including a fine of $400 and a three-year supervised release after the prison term.
Holmes surrendered to custody at Federal Prison Camp in Texas on 30th May 2023, where she currently remains.
Holmes got engaged to hotel heir William Evans in 2019, and in August 2021, she reportedly gave birth to their son while awaiting trial. It has never been fully confirmed whether Evans and Holmes have yet married.
In a New York Times profile Elizabeth revealed that she'd given birth to a second child, a girl named Invicta in February 2023.
Where is Sunny Balwani now?
Holmes' former boyfriend and business partner Sunny Balwani – who is played by Naveen Andrews in the Dropout – was also tried, and found guilty by a jury on 12 counts - two counts of conspiring with Holmes, six counts of defrauding investors and four counts of patient fraud. While Holmes's verdict was mixed, Balwani was found guilty on all counts.
On 7th December 2022 Balwani was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison, along with three years of probation. He surrendered on 20th April 2023 to FCI Terminal Island, a minimum-security facility outside of LA, where he currently remains.
It has been reported that Balwani currently has a scheduled release date of 11th April 2034.
The Dropout is available to stream on BBC iPlayer and on Disney Plus, and is airing on BBC One from 10:40pm on Tuesday 19th March 2024.
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