Elizabeth Holmes photographer encounter
Photographer Benjamin Rasmussen is now sharing details of a 2015 Bloomberg Businessweek shoot with then-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, describing a tightly stage-managed session where PR staff limited him to group portraits with a hand-picked set of women scientists rather than photos of Holmes alone. Rasmussen said the room felt performative and cluttered rather than like a controlled lab - he was told only to wash his hands because of unspecified 'nasty stuff' - and he and his assistant secretly maneuvered Holmes toward a window to grab a handful of solo portraits Theranos hadn't approved, work he says the company's team disliked. He'd kept the story mostly private for over a decade, reluctant to pile onto Holmes' public shaming, but decided to share it after filmmaker Nathan Fielder released a trailer for his own documentary about her, filmed shortly before Holmes began serving her 11-year prison sentence.