'The Journalist and the Pharma Bro'

[lana-banana]

Anyone interested in relationships (I think that includes all of us, right?) should sit down with their beverage of choice and read this extraordinary article in Elle. I made weird indistinct sounds of horror reading pretty much every paragraph and by the time I got to the end I was gasping out loud. It's incredibly sad. I have mixed feelings about whether this should even have made it to print because the subject of the article is so unwell. But it's a very powerful portrayal of manipulation and deception, and how toxic relationships are often two-way streets.

[Ruby_Red]

I don’t know.

I see 2 narcissists feeding off each other.  
She already sold her book, or movie script; she knew why she quit her stable job. I’m sure she’s not stupid. She’s getting a lot of publicity. I think there was more in it for her than meets the eye right away, if you care to look closer....why else would she agree to the Elle article? 
And him: He is a very controversial, hated person. They sent him to prison for a reason. And unfortunately, some women are intrigued by these types of men. I’m sure there are more “victims” than just her, the former Bloomberg journalist. Any other victim is probably more of a victim than her, having no public support and no book deal. I’m sure she’ll be the one who gets out of this just fine. 

[lana-banana]

She is absolutely not a victim. I think she's extremely unwell, but I fully agree she has motives of her own or some kind of delusions of grandeur (clearly not wealth; her ex-husband was in hedge funds). Maybe she wanted to sell a book---but would you divorce your husband to sell a book or a script? Again, I don't think she's innocent at all, but I think she's really REALLY not well, and the publicity itself is part of the problem. 

It is common knowledge that Shkreli targeted dozens of female journalists in an attempt to manage his reputation. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason he shut down during this story was because he has other journalists he's trying to work the same way. They are both dreadful people.

[Ruby_Red]

9 minutes ago, lana-banana said:

She is absolutely not a victim. I think she's extremely unwell, but I fully agree she has motives of her own or some kind of delusions of grandeur (clearly not wealth; her ex-husband was in hedge funds). Maybe she wanted to sell a book---but would you divorce your husband to sell a book or a script? Again, I don't think she's innocent at all, but I think she's really REALLY not well, and the publicity itself is part of the problem. 

It is common knowledge that Shkreli targeted dozens of female journalists in an attempt to manage his reputation. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason he shut down during this story was because he has other journalists he's trying to work the same way. They are both dreadful people.

I only know he kind of harassed one particular journalist for a while, which makes it even more surprising that women would be drawn to him, right? Ugh. So weird. I agree, she’s unwell. With regard to her marriage/divorce, i don’t necessarily believe Shkreli was necessarily the reason. The marriage might’ve been bad, or boring to her, before all that occurred. I think she has narcissistic traits (playing armchair psychologist here), in particular if we look at “female narcissism” as opposed to the male kind of narcissism, and women of that type often get bored and need more male attention of a certain type in general (wealth, fame, stuff like that). That could’ve already somewhat undermined her M for a while before that. Who knows..... Shkreli as a person scares me. I cannot believe anybody would be attracted to him if not for anything they get out of it 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Ruby_Red

[gaius]

I don't think it makes her unwell to get off on a guy who garners attention from other women. Even if he's a loser. That's not uncommon. And hedge fund or no hedge fund, her ex-husband sounds like one of those guys it takes 17 rounds of IVF to get pregnant by. She's on the phone late night with this bro, blowing off marriage counseling to visit him in prison and the husband is just thinking about divorcing. Even sounds like she was the one who ended up pulling the trigger. What a weak, passionless man.

She landed another job as a journalist and is having some excitement in her life so good for her. She probably needs to move on at this point though if he's not talking to her anymore. Maybe she can start writing a sequel on Hunter Biden and get some special attention from him. If her type is famous losers other women are talking about.

[gaius]

They released some pictures of her and her ex-husband. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9080681/Journalist-Christie-Smythe-says-ex-husband-not-happy-Martin-Shkreli-story-broke.html

Beyond me what would inspire any woman to even date let alone marry a guy like that but she's better off at this point. 

[lana-banana]

Her ex-husband seems like a great guy---successful, loving, and dedicated to making it work til the end. I really have no idea what's driving your hatred of him here but it's not even relevant to the topic.

[gaius]

Her husband is part of the story you linked lana which is the subject of this thread. And it's reality, not hatred.

It seemed to me like she was one of those women who married the good on paper guy when she was younger. Same education level, fits in at the office party, is good with friends and family. Then took a decade or two to wake up and gravitate toward what she's actually sexually attracted to. Her husband is the guy you marry because you want a guy in finance, not because he stirs sexual feelings. She's not mentally ill because she decided she finally felt some real sexual attraction and wanted to embrace it.

Now Pharma bro is definitely an odd choice for that but the dynamic with him getting so much media attention isn't so unusual. I'm not sure whether it's the choice of man, loss of status, or her putting her personal life out there in such an open and honest way that horrified you so but I have to give her a lot of credit. Most people wouldn't have the courage to do what she did and be honest about it.

 

[lana-banana]

You seem obsessed with the idea that her ex-husband is not sexually desirable. Not only do we have no reason to believe that's the case, but it's also not relevant, because by all accounts she was interested in Shkreli for access and feeling special to be "chosen" by him, not some kind of raging sexual desire. Furthermore, it's not even clear if she's been honest with anyone, including the reporter, from day one.

I am mystified at your decision to read this as some kind of love story when it is very clearly two deeply manipulative people using each other for strange ends. 

 

[Watercolors]

I read about this weird relationship and I agree. I think she is just as much a narcissist as Shkreli, who broke up with this delusional crime reporter through his lawyer. I think she is severely mentally ill too, because she intentionally threw away her entire life for some scumbag (Shkreli) behind bars. I mean, she was a respected crime journalist. She’ll never get a high status writing job like that again now, b/c the writing and journalism community has probably blacklisted her. What’s sad is, she claims to still love Shkreli even though he has cut ties with her. 

Plus, Shkreli is hideous looking. And he sounds like a weasel when he speaks. He has a whiny tone in his voice. I can’t believe someone like him raised a drug price by 5,000 %. It shows just how immoral pharmaceutical companies are — they’ll hire any schlub to peddle their poisons to the public at ungodly high prices. 

[mark clemson]

One theory would be a coolly rational decision - once she divorced her husband and becomes (in her case) independently wealthy, step 2 would be to do something outrageous and attention-getting and attempt to milk that into minor celebrity-hood. Fits with how she seems to be trying to play all this as some sort of empowerment thing, rather than "victimhood," "a stupid mistake," or "I was crazy" (all of which seem to fit a bit better, at least IMO).

I'm not sure how well she made out in the divorce, so - just a theory. Some people do treat their lives as a game to be "played". Perhaps she tried out the whole picket fence thing (which presumably she could have had in spades) and decided it wasn't for her, etc.

Another theory would be that she's one of those women who carry a fetish for criminals and, since she already had a millionaire husband, she found a millionaire criminal so he would be "even more alpha" (despite being a complete tool like Shkreli obviously is).

Edited December 23, 2020 by mark clemson

[Watercolors]

49 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

Another theory would be that she's one of those women who carry a fetish for criminals and, since she already had a millionaire husband, she found a millionaire criminal so he would be "even more alpha" (despite being a complete tool like Shkreli obviously is).

I'm going to go with this theory as the correct one that describes her motives. I mean, crime reporters for famous publications make big $$ already. Hard to trust her motives. I don't buy her as being a nice, humble, woman overtaken by Shkeli as he's nothing to sneeze at physically (he's ugly; scrawny; weasley-vibe). She saw dollar signs for herself. That, I believe.

[gaius]

6 hours ago, lana-banana said:

You seem obsessed with the idea that her ex-husband is not sexually desirable. Not only do we have no reason to believe that's the case, but it's also not relevant, because by all accounts she was interested in Shkreli for access and feeling special to be "chosen" by him, not some kind of raging sexual desire. Furthermore, it's not even clear if she's been honest with anyone, including the reporter, from day one.

I am mystified at your decision to read this as some kind of love story when it is very clearly two deeply manipulative people using each other for strange ends. 

If she was just being manipulative she could have done what some professional women do. Stay with her husband, keep her job at bloomberg and carry on with pharma bro quietly. That would have been the smarter manipulative move. I really doubt she somehow predicted she would become an internet superstar over all of this and pursued it for that reason. Everything she did after a certain point and how she handled it reeks of being driven by sexual attraction.

And yes. Not because the bro himself is particularly sexy but because he was getting a lot of attention from other female journalists and she got turned on by being "special". And I don't know any woman who would be attracted to a guy like her husband, who upon his wife starting to blow him off to hang out with a different guy in prison simply sat there and thought about divorce. No man worth his salt would put up with that. The fact they had 0 kids in the 10 years they were together but she ran off to freeze her eggs with this guy in short order is telling that he elicited a much stronger sexual attraction than her husband did. Or at least his situation did.

I don't get the sense she's lying and I've never wanted kids intellectually but probably would have knocked up my wife by now if she didn't have a hysterectomy. Because she inspires that feeling in me. It's good Christie got to experience that feeling too before she died. Working at Bloomberg isn't the be-all and end-all of life.