Encore: There's Something about Martin | Part 2
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. This is part two of our two-part series, There's Something About Martin. Even if you think you already know the Martin Shkreli story, you're definitely going to want to listen to part one before diving into this one. Trust me, it'll be worth it.

Sarah, have you ever interviewed somebody and you have ended up like falling in love with them? Not like, oh, I respect them or I like them. Like, I'm in love with you. Oh, absolutely not. I mean, you're interviewing someone and there's a very clear purpose for it. You're trying to get as close to the truth as possible in a very made up scenario. Yeah, I mean, as you know, I interview a lot of YouTubers and like content creators and influencers. So I feel like it is chemically impossible for me to fall in love with any of them.

That seems fair. Yeah. These are fatal last words. Well, I have a barn burner for you this week. It's about the greatest scam of all. Love. Oh, brother. In the spring of 2017, Christy Smythe walks past a statue of Thomas Jefferson perched on the marble steps of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. She's here for a prestigious fellowship where mid-career business journalists get to take courses on economics and finance.

She's been on leave from Bloomberg since the fall to focus all of her energy on the fellowship. And as she walks under the soaring columns and through the door, I imagine that her heart is racing. She's heading to class to hear feedback on a paper she thinks will take her career to the next level. It's a first-person essay all about her personal interactions with the internet's latest viral villain, Martin Shkreli.

Christy's hopeful that her professor, Michael Shapiro, will see the potential in her story for a whole book. But Michael's response is far from glowing praise. He's not impressed. In fact, he's concerned. He essentially tells her that Martin is dangling access to him as a carrot and that the more grateful she is to get exclusives, the more it will hurt her writing.

Christy later says that Michael actively tries to talk her out of the project and that Michael warns her that Martin will, quote, "'ruin your life.'"

I've had some pretty great bosses that I've admired in my time. And if one of them said this to me, it would strike so much fear into my heart. I would make so many different decisions if somebody said that to me. It would make my stomach fall through my body. Right. So obviously this is not the encouragement she was expecting. Michael is her mentor. He's been a magazine writer for years and he's written five books. She looks up to him.

But the icing on top of this shit cake is that when Christy goes home and tells her husband about the project, he takes the side of her professor.

According to Christy, both men, who are both named Michael, tell her that Martin is trying to manipulate her for his own benefit. But Christy just doesn't see it. She feels like there's just something that people don't understand about Martin. Something special. And no one is in a position to understand him as well as she can or to understand all the controversy around him.

She knows this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a writer. So despite her teacher and her husband telling her to drop the Martin story, Christy doubles down, and that stubbornness is about to bloom into an obsession that will totally consume her life. From Wondery, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers. Scamfluencers.

♪♪

This episode explores one of the most complex kinds of lies, the ones we tell ourselves when we fall in love. This is part two of There's Something About Martin. A few months later in April 2017, Martin invites Christy to watch him give a sold-out talk to the corporate finance club at Princeton University. And he asks if she wants to ride there with him. Christy meets Martin at his Murray Hill apartment, and they're picked up by a driver in a black SUV.

Being chauffeured to a fancy Ivy League event probably feels like heaven to Christy. She's getting a taste of Martin's life of luxury. And she thinks the two of them actually have a lot in common. They both grew up outside of the super rich, connected circles that run this world. And this sense of being an outsider is one of the things that bonds them. When they arrive at Princeton, Christy later recalls in her self-published memoir that a dean is there waiting to personally shake their hands.

The leaders of the corporate finance club give Martin a bag of Princeton swag and chocolates. Martin takes the stage and waxes poetic about science, math, and philosophy. And Christy can't get enough.

In her self-published memoir, she describes the audience as wrapped and charmed by Martin. And it seems like she is, too. Martin even gives her a shout-out in his presentation. I have this visceral opposition to most media because even if you find an honest reporter, I've made friends with one. Here we go. The editors...

almost always have this ridiculous point of view. And they found that... Christy later tells Elle magazine that she feels a stir. Oh my God. The thing that is preemptively upsetting me most about this episode is the sheer amount of secondhand embarrassment I feel because forget...

It being this story, anyone starting to have feelings for someone is inherently embarrassing. It's humiliating. Humiliating. I just want to be clear, Sarah. There is not enough money in the world for me to admit on the record that I have a crush on anybody. Never. Well, after the talk, Christy is spending all of her time focused on writing her book proposal about Martin. This project, this person is taking over Christy's personal and professional life.

And while Christie might be charmed by him, other female journalists are seeing a very different side of Martin Shkreli. About two months later, in late June 2017, Martin's securities fraud trial is getting started in a federal district court in Brooklyn. New York Post courts reporter Emily Saul has been assigned to cover it. And she finds an interesting angle.

She writes a story about how hard it's been to find jurors that don't already know and hate Martin. By this point, he's widely loathed for jacking up the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim, used by pregnant women and HIV-AIDS patients. Oh, and people also hate him for buying the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Emily writes that one potential juror was overheard calling Martin Shkreli, quote, "...the face of corporate greed in America."

She describes Martin, who was an earshot of this comment, as, quote, looking bored and sucking on his pen. Ugh, every detail about this is making me sick. Emily also reports that another potential juror was dismissed after she literally recoiled at the sight of Martin, calling him a snake. Another dismissed juror argued that he couldn't be impartial because Martin simply, quote, looks like a dick. Been there.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be hard to find jurors who don't think the same thing. Yeah. Well, other dismissed jurors had more personal problems with Martin, like a handful of jurors who said they'd lost friends to HIV AIDS and wouldn't be able to square the fact that Martin jacked up the price of Daraprim. Martin doesn't seem to be phased by any of these jurors, but he does take issue with the New York Post article, and he goes after the writer. ♪

Just a day after the article runs, he buys domain names for emilysall.com and for another female reporter, CNBC's Meg Terrell, who's also been covering the trial. And he tries to sell both domain names for 12 grand. Just to fuck with them. And it gets worse because then he also changes his relationship status on Facebook to in a relationship with Emily Sall.

He's just so gross. I mean, like, he's just such a nasty troll. I mean, this is sort of what would happen if you let, like, the shittiest 12-year-old you know have way too much money. And, you know, the worst part is that, like, any response to him is playing the game he wants you to play. Like, there kind of is no winning with someone like him. Correct. Correct.

And the harassment gets so bad that Emily actually posts on Twitter that she is not dating Martin Shkreli just to set the record straight on Martin's bullshit. And this isn't the first time that Martin has harassed female journalists. Months earlier, he was suspended from Twitter for creating a harassment campaign against a different journalist, Lauren Dukak.

After she declined his apparent invitation to attend Trump's inauguration with him, he posted a photo of her and her then-husband with his own head photoshopped on top of him to make it look like they were actually cuddling on the couch. He made the photo his profile picture on Twitter and changed his bio to include the following statement. I have a small crush on at Lauren Duca. Hope she doesn't find out. His Twitter account was suspended as a result.

Emily and others might have expected a fellow female journalist like Christy to be disgusted by this repeated harassment. But then Christy posts a tweet that's just, you know what, Sarah, can you just read it?

It says, I don't think he, Martin Shkreli, would hurt a woman, even a journalist. Behold, me and the hashtag Wu-Tang album. And then she tags Lauren Duca and the tweet is a photo of the album. And I mean, it's like partly a flex, partly a defense. And it's like, dude, don't fight your man's battles. Even a normal guy, don't get involved. I know, like let him do it himself, right? Yeah.

In a recording of her memoir, Christy tries to explain her reasoning for sending the tweet. I started to think, if only she knew what Martin was really like in person. A shy, passive nerd who was never violent. Surely that could make some sort of difference in this whole unholy exchange. It was a stupid thought, but it stayed firmly planted in my brain.

Girl, don't. Don't justify it. You know, this whole episode is like watching a horror movie where you watch somebody walk towards the shed and you're like, don't go in the shed. You know better. Yeah, I mean, I guess she doesn't know better. That's the thing. Well, I hope she does now. I don't know.

For Martin's part, when asked by Business Insider about his disturbing pattern of harassing women on the internet, he gives a truly unhinged response, calling them the recipients of a, quote, liberalism subsidy from large media and telecom companies, only a few notches above the white supremacists we hear so much about these days. That doesn't make any sense. He's making several salads made of words.

And despite all of this very real and troubling harassment, Emily has to keep writing articles about Martin because he's actively on trial during all of this. And this behavior is not helping his cause or making him seem likable or sympathetic. But Martin seems determined to stay by his self-righteous worldview. And it's about to get even worse. ♪

Christy shows up to court every day during Martin's trial. She tells Elle that she sits on the same side of the courtroom as Martin's internet fans. She eats lunch with Martin at least once, and a couple of times she even grabs drinks with him and his defense team at the end of the day. Yeah, I remember reading that and just being like, how could you be such a seasoned journalist and make

such basic, dumb mistakes that just totally invalidate everything you're doing. It's so unethical. It's actually funny. But despite Christy's support, Martin is still acting out.

Early on in the trial, during the lunch break, he spontaneously tells a courtroom full of reporters that the prosecution is JV, meaning Junior Varsity. And when reporters ask Martin to clarify his comments, Martin's lawyer swats them away. You can hear the frustration in his voice in this clip from CNBC. What you said about the attorney saying the Junior Varsity. I really think Martin is not going to be speaking to you guys again if he listens to me. He just spoke to us.

The judge later bans Martin from talking publicly in or around the courthouse. Martin's trial is getting closer to a verdict, and instead of playing ball, he's wilding out. Christy is frustrated watching Martin screw himself over this way, but it seems like she just continues to see the good side in him. So the trial drags on for five weeks, and after deliberating for five days, the jury comes to a decision. Guilty. Guilty.

on three of the eight counts. That includes two counts of securities fraud, you know, for lying to his investors, and one count of securities fraud conspiracy for that whole retrophin stock scheme.

After the verdict is delivered, Martin addresses the press, and he's as smug and defensive as ever. This was a witch hunt of epic proportions, and maybe they found one or two broomsticks, but at the end of the day, we've been acquitted of the most important charges in this case, and I'm delighted to report that. Okay. Thank you.

Oh, everything's a witch hunt. Every time a man references a witch hunt, they fundamentally don't understand what a witch hunt is. I think men think a witch hunt is someone asking you a question. Yeah.

Well, despite how bad this all looks for Martin, Christie continues to ride for him. They're becoming so much more than journalist and subject. They're basically best friends at this point. It's almost like the worse his reputation gets, the more Christie defends him. Luckily for him, Martin is able to post the $5 million bail, so he's still living the free life while he awaits sentencing. And he's facing up to 20 years in prison.

Christy deeply cares for Martin at this point, but not even she can get him to stop making an utter jackass of himself.

About a month later, while he's awaiting sentencing, Martin publishes two separate Facebook posts. He's offering $5,000 to anyone who would, quote, grab a hair from Hillary Clinton during her book tour. Now, you might remember from the last episode that Hillary Clinton called Martin out on Twitter for the Daraprim price hike about two years earlier. She and a whole lot of other politicians did that. But

There's just something about this particular politician that gets to Martin. What do you think it is, Sarah? Do you think it has anything to do with her being a woman? I don't think it's helping. Not long after he posts the Facebook updates, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto calls a special hearing. She looks Martin dead in the eye and basically tells him to suck it.

She calls his comments a solicitation of assault and revokes his bail. And she gives a pretty scathing comment about it to the Washington Post.

Sarah, can you read it? Yeah, it says, So, Screlly's lawyer says that all of this is just a big misunderstanding. The Facebook posts were all a joke. He tells reporters, He says things that are stupid. I don't think stupid makes you violent.

But alas, it's too late. The damage is done. From now on, Martin will have to await his sentencing in a prison cell. You know what the most crazy thing is about this? If he just didn't have a disease where he couldn't stop posting, he wouldn't have to be awaiting his sentencing in a prison cell. He truly did it to himself. I mean, for some people, posting too much is a terminal illness, and Martin has it.

When the hearing ends, journalists swarm Martin's lawyer, lining up to ask questions. And Christy is one of those journalists. But Sarah, her questions are just different than the other reporters. For example, she asks things like, does Martin have his glasses or his anxiety medication? Is someone looking after his cat? The lawyer does not have the answers. So Christy says that she texts one of Martin's friends and a family member to let them know what's going on.

If someone knew I did this, I would change my identity. I would change my name. I would change my job. I'd move halfway across the world. I'd learn a new language. I would change everything fundamentally about myself and restart. Yeah, I mean, I would be remiss if I also didn't remind all of us she's still married to someone else. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, Martin and Christy seem to just be self-sabotaging and Martin cannot stop himself from making things worse.

Christy's probably telling herself that she's getting close to Martin for the sake of her book, but she's actually putting her career and her personal life on the line to take care of him. And when their relationship finally comes to light, the damage will already have been done.

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She has to make the visit really quick, though, because she's got a couples counseling appointment with her husband that same evening, all the way clear across town on the Upper West Side. It's a lot of schlepping, but Christy is determined to see Martin. When Christy arrives at the prison, she waits in a long security line. And then she's led by an officer through a small hallway to the visitor's room. In her memoir, she says that the crowded room reeks of microwave pizza and chicken wings.

Prisoners and visitors are packed closely together in plastic chairs facing each other while corrections officers rove around like lunch ladies or recess supervisors, quick to admonish or punish anyone who looks like they're stepping out of line. Christy says that she's Martin's very first visitor in jail, but it's kind of strange that she's here. This is where all the prison girlfriends hang out to see their loved ones. And she's not a loved one. Is she?

Christy later tells Elle that she buys him 30 bucks worth of vending machine snacks. And she even warms up a little hamburger for him. When Martin comes out, he's wearing a baggy brown jumpsuit. Christy says she has to show him which chair to sit in. She spoils him with treats and they catch up on life. They talk about Picasso and her book and his cat, whose name is, I swear to God, Trashy. And she says, I swear to God, Trashy.

And she just totally loses track of time. It's crazy that, like, she's in a situationship with Martin Shkreli while he's in jail where it's like, yeah, we talk a lot and, like, I feel like we connect, but, like, I don't know if he likes me likes me. Okay, well, Sarah, I'm going to make it worse. Are you ready? When the visit with Martin is over, she realizes that she's late for the counseling session she has with her husband. Like, really late.

She grabs an Uber and silently screams at herself the entire drive. She knows her husband is going to be fuming. And by the time she makes it to the therapy session, he's reportedly pacing the waiting room, livid, because she's 52 minutes late for their one-hour session. You know, it's just like...

At that point, just lie. Why rush to the freaking therapy session when you're 52 minutes late? Yeah. At that point, literally any excuse would be better than the truth. Yeah. Well, predictably, Christy says that the session is a disaster. She says that her husband accuses her of being obsessed with her book and with Martin and

And Christy defends herself, saying it's a once-in-a-lifetime project. She explains to the therapist that she wants to show the other side of Martin Shkreli, that he has redeemable qualities. The therapist responds by saying that Hitler was a good painter. Christy is disgusted. Martin is not Hitler, she says. Always a great thing to have to yell out in couples therapy.

And after two more sessions, which Christy says cost 300 bucks each, Christy and her husband decide to end their marriage of five years. At the same time, Christy's relationship with Martin is deepening. It becomes harder and harder to keep their flirty friendship under wraps. And soon, Christy will be forced to admit her true feelings to her job, to herself, and to Martin. And the cost will be unimaginable.

The months go by and Christy continues to visit Martin in jail. She talks to him on the phone and emails him through a special prison email system, which is monitored. And all this time, she's still working on her book proposal, even though all the publishers she sent it to have rejected it. She tells Elle magazine that they all wanted a hit piece on Martin and she just refused to write one. But she's hoping to sell film rights to the proposal.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors in Martin's case are pushing to keep Martin behind bars for 15 years. In early March of 2018, they submit materials to the court in an attempt to convince the judge that Martin shows no remorse. They include email conversations he recently had with someone they call Individual One. And in one email, Martin says that he'd do, quote, everything and anything to get the lowest sentence possible.

Christy's heart drops when she realizes that these are her emails and what she thought were private email conversations are now a part of the court record. No offense. How did she not know? Oh, Sarah, this is fucking amateur hour. Like, I've never done this type of reporting before and even I know this. Well, you kind of have to assume whatever you say to a source could be subpoenaed. That's like how you have to function.

Anything you could say to anyone can be subpoenaed. That's how the world works. Exactly. Well, Christie also knows that when other reporters discover that she's individual one, they'll realize her reporting was anything but objective. Christie realizes that she can't live this double life anymore. So she decides to come clean to her editors at Bloomberg about her relationship with Martin. And really remarkably, Sarah, her bosses just move her off the Scully beat and have her report on other court cases instead.

Oh, my God. You know, say she was really taken in by a very manipulative person, like even giving the situation the most grace as possible. She shouldn't be reporting on court cases at all. She didn't even know her freaking emails could get subpoenaed. Well, when the sentencing hearing arrives in March 2018, Christy is a ball of nerves. She tells herself that she's here for book research, but she's also deeply invested in the outcome.

Martin's lawyer makes a last-ditch effort to defend him. He says Martin lacks certain social skills and that sentencing him to 15 years in prison would be horrific and draconian. He even reads letters of support from Martin's fellow inmates, who say he's actually been a positive influence. And then Martin himself addresses the courtroom. He says that he's here because of his stupid, negligent mistakes and that he's not the same person he was when he was running MSMB.

He says, quote, there was no government conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli. He seems to express real accountability, maybe for the first time ever. He says, this is my fault. I am not a victim here. The judge announces Martin's fate. Seven years in prison. It's a lighter sentence than the prosecution had argued for, but it's still an absolute gut punch for Martin and Christy.

Martin's eyes well up with tears. He begins sobbing in court. I mean, yeah, that obviously sucks, but it also kind of shows how invincible he thought he was. Yeah, he didn't think it was going to happen. And I can only imagine that Christy is also totally devastated. She continues to defend him publicly. In July, several months after the sentencing hearing, she fires off a tweet suggesting that his punishment was completely out of proportion. She says,

But her employer, they can't turn a blind eye anymore. Christy later tells Elle that her editor at Bloomberg, along with an HR rep, tell her that her behavior is biased and unprofessional. And Christy realizes that she's put them in a tough position. So she decides to quit on the spot. She's all alone now. She has no job. Her marriage has fallen apart. And her closest ally is a convicted white-collar criminal. She is officially at rock bottom.

And she has to know if these sacrifices have been worth it. So Christy's about to take the greatest risk of all, opening up to Martin about her feelings. After his sentencing, Martin's transferred to a correctional facility in Pennsylvania. It's almost 200 miles away. And Christy, who tells Elle that she had a lifelong fear of driving, has gotten her driver's license to go visit him.

Christy's decided that she needs to come clean. She has to tell him that she likes him. Like, like likes him. She hasn't confessed her feelings yet, and she doesn't even know if they're reciprocated. But she can't hold it in any longer. I don't think I've ever seen someone be so down bad, you know? Sarah, she's down bad. Like, she got her driver's license to go visit him in prison. Like, that's a motivation of your life? Yeah.

I know. Christy sits in the prison visitor's room, crowded with inmates and their loved ones. Security guards walk up and down, making sure no one gets too close. It's not exactly the most romantic atmosphere, but it doesn't matter. Christy later tells Elle that she was sitting across from Martin at a table when she gathers her courage, takes a deep breath, and lays it all on the line. "'I love you,' she tells him. And Martin says he loves her, too."

Christy's so happy. She gets bold and asks if she can kiss him. And he says yes. So they officially go to first base in the prison visitor room under the harsh fluorescent lights and watchful eye of security guards. I don't want this to be happening anymore. I know, honey. You know? I know.

Before long, Martin asks Christy to be his girlfriend. And pretty soon, she later tells Elle, they're talking marriage and baby names. After about a year and a half of dating, things are going so well that Christy says that she decides to freeze her eggs so she and Martin can start a family when he gets out. Even better, she says a production company wants to turn her still unpublished book about Martin into a movie. It's all happening. Christy's rebuilding her life with Martin.

But two intractable forces are about to drive these star-crossed lovers apart. Okay, Sarah, it's 2020, and Christy is thinking long and hard about her relationship with Martin. He's a public figure, so while no one knows about their relationship status yet, Christy is convinced that it's just a matter of time. So she decides to spill the tea herself to Stephanie Clifford.

Stephanie is a journalist with Elle magazine, and she previously covered Martin's trial for the New York Times. So she knows the story inside and out. And now she wants the story on Christy. Yeah, this was a huge day for all of us when this article came out. Yeah, I remember doing no work. Well, unfortunately, when Martin finds out that Christy is talking to a national magazine about their relationship, he cuts off all communication with her. ♪

In her memoir, Christy says that she suspects that he was upset that she was telling her story. She tries everything to get Martin to talk to her again. Emails, packages, letters, but all she gets back is radio silence. Stephanie tells Christy that she reached out to Martin for a quote and that she heard back from his lawyers. Christy is just a jumble of emotions. And whatever it is, she's finally going to hear something from Martin. She holds her breath and

And awkwardly, Stephanie tells her. His message is, Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future endeavors. Oh, that is one way to end a relationship. Yeah. Christy knows that this is Martin saying goodbye. She later says that she breaks down and fully cries in front of Stephanie. Martin never wants to see her again. And she's still completely in love with him.

And things go from bad to worse when Stephanie's article comes out in December 2020. The headline is, The Journalist and the Pharma Bro. It goes viral, as you and I obviously remember. And Christy takes a real beating in the press and online.

In an opinion piece for CNN, the writer Jill Filipovic asks, is she delusional or psychologically unwell? Yeah, that's kind of what a lot of people were wondering out loud. It's like, why? How? Yeah. And basically, like, how do I make sure this never happens to anybody near me ever? Yes. Well, a few months later, Christy goes on the Tamron Hall show to set the record straight.

I think a lot of people misread some of it. People interpreted things in their own way. I think everyone's been sitting at home watching too much true crime documentaries and so on. And a lot of people wanted to see me as a victim.

And I don't think that's what the writer of the article intended at all. And that certainly isn't what I am. Then, Tamron Hall asks Christy about the quote everyone can't stop thinking about. When he said he wishes you the best, would you have preferred him to say, oh, and I love her too?

I, yeah, I would have, but I also knew what I was getting into. Martin didn't want me to go public. He was in a situation where he doesn't have any control in the prison. Christy defends Screlly, saying it's a terrifying time to be in prison during COVID. And it's just really hard on him right now, you know? But Christy can't fully let go.

She later admits in her memoir that she set up a Google alert for his name to read up on anything about him. And apparently, she keeps in touch with his friends. Why is she telling people this? I know. She's admitting to a lot of stuff she doesn't have to say. And by this time, Christy has been leading the U.S. news team for a London-based insurance publication.

But now, facing so much negative attention from the Elle article, she decides to leave her job. She says she doesn't want the company to suffer because of her. And her book idea about Martin, it isn't getting much traction from traditional publishers. So she may have to just publish it herself. Her life has imploded, and now she'll have to figure out how to pick up the pieces. ♪

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He'll serve the remainder of a sentence in a halfway house in New York. He's a kind of free man, but while he was locked up, the Federal Trade Commission ruled against him for price gouging, and they banned him from participating in the pharmaceutical industry for life. By this time, his old company, Turing, now known as Vieira Pharmaceuticals, has reached a $40 million settlement with the FTC over its price gouging of Daraprim.

The company has also settled for $28 million in an antitrust class action case, which alleged that Martin and Vieira illegally limited generic competition with Daraprim. So obviously, Martin has a lot of baggage and a lot of settlements to pay. But that doesn't stop him from trying to start over. Maybe he'll meet some new people, you know? Just days after he's released from prison, BuzzFeed News reporter and my colleague, Stephanie McNeil, finds his profile on Bumble.

She tweets, She includes a snap of his profile picture.

Sarah, can you describe this photo? Yeah, it kind of looks like a selfie slash mugshot. He's against a white wall and he's kind of smirking. He has that perma smirk in the photo. Even if he wasn't Martin Shkreli, you wouldn't look at that and think like, all right, I want to get to know this guy. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't look friendly. I'll say that. Well, Martin Shkreli is trying to figure out his next move. Will anyone swipe on him?

Better yet, will anyone hire him? And will anyone ever trust him again? It's not clear what kind of future the most hated man in America can look forward to.

Around this time, Christy finally self-publishes the first chapter of her memoir. She's titled it, Smirk, How I Fell in Love with the Most Hated Man in America. I gotta give it to her. It's a pretty good title. In the about section of the memoir, Christy writes that Substack is the best way to get her story out there because, quote, it's a good way to get her story out there.

It seeks to disrupt the publishing status quo by reducing the need for gatekeepers, which to me sounds like she just couldn't get a publishing deal. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And well, according to the Sunday Times, as of June of this year, Christy lives alone with her dog, Jack. She's dating a horror filmmaker named Humberto, who lives in Jersey. And every month she releases new chapters of her e-book online to paid subscribers.

I mean, credit where credit's due, she did pick herself up again in some ways. She did something.

And over time, Martin appears to forgive Christy for talking to Elle. He reaches out and now, surprisingly, they're friends. And believe it or not, she is still publicly writing for this dude. Sarah, take a look at this tweet from June of this year. It says, If you say all people deserve second chances and a shot at redemption except Martin Shkreli or except whomever the internet has decided to hate at a given moment, you really don't mean that.

Yeah, I mean, somebody must have pissed her off that day and she just shot this one out. Yes. But Christy still defends Martin every chance she gets. And it's unclear where she's working now or what her future will hold. What we do know is that there's no greater red flag in a love story than falling in love with a notorious, infamous, and super arrogant scam artist.

Okay, Sarah. I mean, in some ways, it might seem that justice was served in the case of Martin Shkreli, a person who did things that hurt the most vulnerable population, went to jail, and then lost all of his money.

But Sarah, do you feel like the Martin Scully story has a satisfying ending? Not really, because it's just one story of someone doing something bad and getting punished in an industry where the standard is kind of mistreating people and price gouging and all that kind of stuff. And it is kind of true that this all happened because he was an asshole.

Yeah. I mean, even when you think about it, like the price of Daraprim, you know, it's not 750 anymore. It's now 790 a pill because he wasn't really doing anything illegal. He was operating in the exact way that the pharmaceutical industry in the United States is intended to operate. This is

Also a scam, as you and I have discussed, that's just about the healthcare industry here. And it's not really a scam if it works the way that it's designed to work. Like it's broken on purpose. The scam to me was that this guy was able to get in a position where he was able to do anything he did. Yeah. And it just makes me wonder like, oh my God, how many more people are like him but just weren't public about it? Yeah.

And I will say that as hated as he was, he did have a lot of fans. Like internet dude, troll guys loved Martin Shkreli. And I think at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if people hated him or liked him as far as his influence went, because every way of talking about him gave him power in that moment, you know? There are probably a couple hundred guys like him who are pulling the same semi-legal scams and are getting away with it.

because they're not public assholes the way he was. Yeah. It's just that he made so much noise. Yeah, he could have kept his mouth shut and participated in this price gouging scam that is quite legal. I am just kind of floored that he fumbled the bag so hard as someone who

Also was highly strategic with how he moved around the world. Like to his credit, you know, he didn't grow up in the world of finance or having a dad who worked in finance or like being in a fraternity or anything like that, you know? Yeah. So he got himself somewhere and then he just kind of...

destroyed it all. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's clear we have very little sympathy for Martin, but do you feel bad for Christy at all? I feel for her in the sense that like she clearly got sucked into something that ruined her life, but also she did kind of end up fine in the end. Maybe she doesn't have a lucrative or prestigious job, but she's out here living. She's found love.

This is a horrific story that's like about the U.S. healthcare system, the colossal fraud that is the stock market, and love. The three greatest scams in modern life. Yes. I mean, the scam here is that she fell in love with a wasteman. See, that's the lesson. Never fall in love. And if you have to do it, don't do it.

Don't do it with a waist, man. Also, like, do it privately. Do it like you're embarrassed appropriately. Yeah, we all do shameful things for the sake of love. We've all been down bad. Yeah. Not me personally, but... No, never. You know, it happens to everyone, but most people have the sense to not go public with it, you know? Well, if you gotta be down bad, you better do it in the dark. That's what I always say.

This is There's Something About Martin, Part 2. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Stephanie Clifford's article, The Journalist and the Farmer Bro in Elle magazine, and her reporting on Martin Scurley's trial in the New York Times. Laura Pullman's UK Sunday Times article, I Left My Husband for the Most Hated Man in America, and Christy Smythe's self-published memoir, Smirk.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze On Sync.

Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis. For Wondery. If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.