Kate McKinnon Exits Hulu Series About Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes

Kate McKinnon will no longer be stepping into the role of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, our sister site Deadline reports.

The Saturday Night Live staple was set to play Holmes in The Dropout, a Hulu limited series based on the ABC News podcast of the same name. The project, which snagged a series order in April 2019, will reportedly continue with a new actress in the role. McKinnon was also attached as an executive producer.

Once billed as the next Steve Jobs, Holmes founded a privately held health technology company called Theranos in 2003 when she was just 19 years old. By 2013, the company — which claimed to have developed more accurate blood tests that required less blood than traditional exams — was worth about $10 billion, but a series of reports and scandals eventually exposed Theranos as a scam.

ABC News describes its podcast as follows: “The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos is an unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong. How did the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire lose it all in the blink of an eye? How did the woman once heralded as ‘the next Steve Jobs’ find herself facing criminal charges — to which she pleaded not guilty — and up to 20 years in jail? How did her technology, meant to revolutionize healthcare, potentially put millions of patients at risk? And how did so many smart people get it so wrong along the way?”

Are you disappointed that McKinnon won’t be playing Holmes? (Don’t worry, she’s still playing Carole Baskin!) Whatever’s on your mind, drop it in a comment below.