It's difficult to pinpoint what Holmes sounded like exactly before Theranos, but several people have shared how they stumbled upon the real story behind her odd voice. "We didn't know that it wasn't her voice until much later," Ana Arriola, a former product designer at Apple and one of Holmes's first Theranos recruits, said on a podcast episode of "The Dropout." "In all my interactions with her, she never fell out of character. That was her voice. But other people that I worked with actually had caught her fall out of voice." Arriola added, "I think it was at one of the company parties. Maybe she had a little bit too much to drink or whatnot, but she fell out of character and exposed that that wasn't necessarily her true voice."
In 2019, TMZ reported that Holmes's family denied claims of the founder using a fake voice, telling the outlet that her voice is "naturally low." They also said that most people in Holmes's family, including her grandmother, have low voices, and said that Holmes occasionally changes the pitch of her voice — especially when she gets excited or passionate.
Holmes hasn't directly addressed her voice or revealed any reasons as to why she might have changed it. But it's theorized that Holmes may have thought that a deep voice would make her sound more authoritative as a CEO. "Maybe she needed it to be more convincing to project a persona within a room amongst male VCs. I'm not really quite sure," Arriola said. Jillian O'Connor, an assistant professor of psychology at Concordia University who studies the role of voice in social behavior, told The Cut that Holmes's elaborate scheme suggested "an awful lot went into [the] facade."
But in May 2023, Holmes was profiled by the New York Times, and the interviewer noted that she's no longer using the deep voice. Even her partner Billy Evans, with whom she shares two children, poked fun at her old voice. "That would be crazy, if she answered the door and said, 'Hi. I'm Elizabeth Holmes,'" he said, imitating the voice. The outlet reported that Holmes "let out the slightest of giggles" at his joke.
