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β€˜I’m always being real’: what on earth persuades disgraced people like Elizabeth Holmes to let the cameras in?

21 October 2026 at 16:02

With You Can See Everything, Holmes joins other such high-profile subjects as Lance Armstrong, Imelda Marcos and Anthony Weiner to allow film-makers to document their lives. But do they ever come out well?

In You Can See Everything, convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes invites film-makers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into her home in a supposed act of β€œradical transparency”. Holmes is filmed, along with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two young children, in the weeks before starting a prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors. β€œThe best way for people to see who she is,” Evans says, β€œis to give as much access as possible into our daily lives”. It may also be the best way to market β€œTheranos 2.0”, which the couple are working on during filming. But the documentary questions whether Holmes is presenting her authentic self or a manufactured persona. Fielder speaks for the audience when he asks Holmes in a tense exchange whether she’s β€œbeing real” with him. β€œI’m always being real,” she says.

That question of authenticity is at the heart of documentary film-making. You Can See Everything is as much about the ambiguous relationship between film-maker and subject as it is about Holmes herself. There is often a power struggle over narrative control in documentaries, with both sides of the dynamic wanting different outcomes from the final film. Watching You Can See Everything inevitably prompts the question: why would Holmes, days before she heads to jail, invite the scrutiny of a film crew?

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Β© Photograph: Courtesy of A24

Β© Photograph: Courtesy of A24

Β© Photograph: Courtesy of A24

Rise of Chicken Shop Date highlights how YouTube turned the tables on TV

Amelia Dimoldenberg says publicists ignored her interview show for years but she can now be picky over A-list guests

Just a decade ago, Amelia Dimoldenberg found it impossible to drum up any mainstream celebrities to come on her mock date YouTube show, in which she chats awkwardly with guests over chicken and chips.

Even persuading a local actor connected with her London youth club to come on took years of prodding. Managers of A-listers with movies or albums to push instead battled to claim a spot on the hallowed cushions of the primetime TV chatshow sofa.

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Β© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

Β© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

Β© Photograph: Chicken Shop Date

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