Dax Shepard recalled a time when Elizabeth Holmes tried to book a spot on his podcast “Armchair Expert” before she went to prison.
On Monday’s episode of the podcast, Shepard and co-host Monica Padman walked through when they were approached by Holmes and her partner Billy Evans about coming on the show as a guest. Padman remembered that they “reached out to us in a kind of crazy way.”
“It felt scammy,” Shepard said.
“We felt we were being scammed,” Padman agreed. “But he reached out to see if they could come on. I think, or just her, or they, or them. We were like, ‘I don’t think this is real.’ And we were like, ‘Isn’t she like on house arrest,’ which I think she was. So we were very confused. We didn’t really believe it.”
For Shepard, he did not like the idea of the interview because he already thought Holmes was lying about everything surrounding her Theranos case and fallout. He didn’t want to spend the full effort taking her to task on those lies.
“My memory is I all of a sudden went, ‘This is a zero win for me personally because I think she’s a liar, and I’m going to have to confront her lying,’” Shepard said. “And then it’s going to be an episode where for an hour and a half I confront someone’s lying, and I don’t think that’s what Armcherries want to hear, and I don’t think that’s a role anyone wants me to do. They don’t want me to be hard hitting, destroy someone’s fake reality.”
The hosts then pulled up an email from 2023 that Evans apparently sent them back when Holmes was trying to get on the show – which came with a picture to prove they were real. The email from Evans showed that he was fed up with the back and forth and plans for Zooming in even though he was the one who reached out to the show in the first place.
“‘Tell Dax plus Monica I appreciate their congratulations.’ I don’t know what they’ve congratulated on,” Shepard read. “‘But unfortunately, my patience has run thin. I am uncomfortable zooming with an anonymous assistant on the matter. We take our privacy very seriously, and at this point, I have no idea who you are or why you can be trusted. We have been silent for seven years, and sharing intimate details with you is not a risk I’m willing to take. If they are interested in speaking, they are welcome to reach out directly. But I will no longer email back and forth with you on the matter. It’s going to have to require some trust on their side.’ Which is so funny because they reached out.”
The reachouts would have come around when Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim were still working on their hit documentary “You Can See Everything” about Holmes and the period leading up to her incarceration. Padman said rereading the email sent a chill down her after having seen the movie and getting a closer look at how Evans ran things following Holmes beginning her time in prison. She also wondered if Evans reached out for the same reason they wanted Fielder to do the documentary.
“I think they thought he would get them,” Padman said. “He would be more endeared or like want to show a positive view. So it makes total sense to me why he reached out to come on our show because we do show human beings in full. So even if we had her on and even if we did question her, we would have probably shown like a side that people would have liked.”
You can watch Shepard and Padman explain the story in full int he video above.
The post Dax Shepard Reveals Elizabeth Holmes Tried Booking ‘Armchair Expert’ Before Prison: ‘It Felt Scammy’ appeared first on TheWrap.
