The internet thought it knew everything about Elizabeth Holmes. Then the A24 documentary You Can See Everything hit theaters, and audiences suddenly found themselves staring at Billy Evans instead.
Co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the project grants an astonishingly bizarre level of access into the final days before Holmes reported to federal prison. Yet what starts as a final look at the disgraced Theranos founder quickly morphs into something entirely different. Evans—an MIT graduate and heir to the Evans Hotels fortune—invites a documentary crew into his rented home, barks bizarre justifications, and manages to steal the spotlight through pure, unadulterated awkwardness.
If you are wondering who Billy Evans actually is and why he emerged as the breakout villain of the project, you have to look past the corporate wealth and examine how radical transparency can backfire in real-time.
Who Is Billy Evans Beyond the Headlines
Long before he married Holmes at a private ceremony in 2019, Evans lived a relatively quiet life as part of the prominent San Diego hotel family. He graduated from MIT and later worked on tech and startup initiatives, including an artificial intelligence medical testing project named Haemanthus.
He met Holmes at a social event in 2017, well after the initial cracks in the Theranos facade began to show, but before her criminal trial reached its frantic peak. By the time federal prosecutors secured convictions for wire fraud, the couple had already welcomed two children together.
While Holmes spent years maintaining a tightly managed public persona—complete with the trademark black turtleneck and manufactured baritone voice—Evans took a radically opposite route for the cameras. He opened the doors wide. And that is where the trouble started.
The Radical Transparency Trap
Evans operates under a strange ideological framework. He genuinely believes people only fear or judge Holmes because they do not know her. His solution to public outrage was letting filmmakers film literally everything.
This level of exposure leads to moments that make viewers squirm. Within the first twenty minutes, the camera follows Evans into the gym before tracking an uncomfortably long shot of him showering with the bathroom door wide open, nearly colliding with Fielder on his way out. It is weird, intrusive, and entirely self-inflicted.
Fielder pushes the envelope further during interviews, asking the question everyone at home is thinking: Weren't you worried she was scamming you?
Evans responds with absolute calm, claiming he thought about it one hundred percent of the time, but rationalizing that he had nothing worth taking. When pressed about his family fortune, his defenses feel defensive, rehearsed, and completely out of touch with reality.
The Real Reason Audiences Are Frustrated With Him
Viewers are not annoyed with Evans simply because he is wealthy or eccentric. They are frustrated because he acts as an enabler who shields Holmes from accountability while pretending to champion truth.
In one of the most talked-about scenes in the film, Holmes brings out the exact blood-testing device associated with the Theranos scandal. Fielder calls it what it is—a scam device—while Holmes flatly rejects the label, insisting it could work given enough time. Instead of recognizing the delusion, Evans steps in to explain that Holmes simply "thinks differently" from other people.
When Fielder plays the classic Abbott and Costello routine Who's on First? to highlight communication barriers, Holmes admits she does not get the joke. Rather than acknowledging her complete lack of normal social calibration, Evans spins it as proof of her unique genius.
It is this constant gaslighting of basic reality that transforms Evans from a supportive partner into a frustrating secondary character in a tragedy of his own making. He wants the world to see the real Elizabeth, but what the audience actually sees is a man desperately insulating himself inside an alternate universe.
What Happens Next
You Can See Everything does not offer a neat resolution because life rarely does. Holmes is currently serving an eleven-year federal sentence, with a transition to a halfway house on the horizon, while Evans continues to manage his life outside prison walls.
Yet the documentary leaves behind a lingering question about modern accountability. When public figures face total ruin, sometimes the most fascinating wreckage isn't the person who committed the crime. It is the partner standing right beside them, nodding along to every single delusion.
