Despite being behind bars “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli just can't stop making headlines.
Apparently one New York journalist did get a bit lost in Martin’s sauce, as a new Elle feature reveals how former Bloomberg News reporter Christie Smythe fell in love with the notorious grifter while covering his various legal battles and controversies. Smythe would eventually leave her husband and career for a relationship with the 37-year-old, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence.
“I fell down the rabbit hole,” Smythe told Elle of her life-changing relationship. “I’m happy here. I feel like I have purpose.”
Smythe, who has sold the movie rights to a book about Shkreli, is still planning to wait for her boo behind bars, even though (mild spoiler alert) he now isn’t speaking to her because of the Elle story.
“Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future endeavors,” a statement from Shkreli said to the magazine.
Before getting entangled with one of the most hated people in the world, Smythe lived “the perfect little Brooklyn life” with her dog and husband. Now she works out of her Harlem basement apartment waiting for Shkreli — a man best known for jacking up the price of life-saving drugs. She also froze her eggs to make sure they would be able to have children once her “life partner” is released from prison.
“I’m gonna try,” she said. “I’ll be here.”
Smythe began reporting about Shkreli for Bloomberg in 2015, covering his various trials and visiting him in prison, before eventually quitting her reporting job over the relationship in the summer of 2018. Smythe described the development of their romance as “incremental decisions, where you’re, like, slowly boiling yourself to death in the bathtub.”
Eventually she confessed her love for Shkreli in a prison visitation room that smelled like chicken wings. “He told me he loved me, too," she told Elle. "It’s hard to think of a time when I felt happier.”
Fellow journalists and others online poked fun at this whirlwind romance between a successful reporter and the man who paid $2 million for a Wu-Tang record.
“I realize it's hard for many people to accept that 1. Martin is not a psychopath,” Smythe tweeted on Sunday, as the story circulated online. “And 2. a woman can choose to do something with her life (which does not affect you) that you in no way approve of. But that's OK.”
When asked if she'd heard from her notorious beau, Smythe confirmed that she hadn't. "I have not. He really hates that I did this article," she wrote before adding "Also the covid thing makes communication difficult."
Read the entire feature on Elle’s website.
