Billy Evans, the partner of the disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes who many people have come to see as the antagonist of the documentary film “You Can See Everything,” has disputed an account of how one of the movie’s most jaw-dropping moments originated.
A scene early in the documentary shows Evans completely nude, taking a shower and apparently aware that he is being filmed. Lance Oppenheim, who with Nathan Fielder directed what is arguably the year’s buzziest film, told GQ that the shot was Evans’s idea.
But on Monday, during an “Ask Me Anything” on X, Evans said any account that asserted he wanted to be filmed naked in the shower was a “false narrative.”
Writing on the social media site, he instructed users to “trust the ‘sources’” cited in a recent article in People, who said that the scene “wasn’t Billy’s idea,” and told the magazine that Evans had agreed to the shower scene only “with an understanding they would keep it PG,” referring to the filmmakers. People attributed the quotations to a single source “familiar with the situation.”
According to Oppenheim’s account in GQ, he told Evans on a car ride back from the gym, “We will give you some time to shower.” He said Evans responded, “Want to film me showering?”
“I offered to film him in a way that could avoid seeing his genitals,” Oppenheim told GQ, “but Billy said he didn’t care about being seen naked.”
In the X thread, Evans also addressed several other widely discussed moments in the film, including his tendency to sniffle and the power of attorney he has been granted over Holmes’s affairs. Evans attributed the sniffling to illness and allergies, and of the power of attorney he wrote, referring to Holmes, “The POA was simply the legal mechanism that allowed me to act on her behalf while she’s incarcerated.”
Evans also cast doubt on the film’s re-enactment of a meeting in which Fielder recalled Evans asking to share in the film’s profits. As the film tells it, during a meeting at a house with the filmmakers and executives from A24, the company that released the movie, Holmes excuses herself to head upstairs and tend to their children, as Evans remains behind to negotiate — essentially insulating her from the messiness of bargaining.
Asserting that the house had only one story, he added, “All you need to know.” (A card at the end of the film states that Evans changed his mind about being paid.)
Requests for comment sent to an email address associated with Evans was not returned. Representatives for Fielder and Oppenheim did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A24 declined to comment.
“You Can See Everything,” which earned $15 million in its opening weekend and has since quadrupled that tally, follows Holmes in the 34 days before she is scheduled to begin a prison sentence for defrauding investors over her failed blood testing start-up’s technology. Some observers have suggested that the film may become the first documentary to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars.
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