Christie Smythe and Our Need for Trauma Porn in 2020
By: Jackie Gualtieri
Tags: Martin Shkreli, Emotional Abuse, Women, Feminism, Trauma

Christie Smythe and Our Need for Trauma Porn in 2020

Collective trauma made us need a new sacrifice.

Photo courtesy of Caroline Tompkins for Elle

Most likely, you’re a lot like me in that you hadn’t really expected to see the name of Martin Shkreli trending on Twitter in 2020. And, perhaps, also like me, you really didn’t want to see it either. Maybe you also have family and friends who were affected by drug price gouging by people like him, or directly by him, and you also have little sympathy for him. Or maybe, also like me, you were on Twitter before he was sentenced to prison, and you remember his repulsive behavior, particularly towards female journalists.

If you’re like me, you also found yourself a few paragraphs into that Elle article, “The Journalist and the Pharma Bro,” disgusted by Shkreli all over again, but this time also disgusted by the woman who fell in love with him and the people who greenlit that “article.” I’ll freely admit that the first time I opened that story, I closed it several paragraphs in, unwilling to read the full thing no matter how much Elle publicized that it had a “twist ending.”

I found my way onto Twitter, wondering if anyone else was seething along with me.

Not only were people seething. They were laughing.

Numerous people, blue-check-marked or otherwise, were telling the same joke. “Well, my love life sucks, but at least I wasn’t the woman who threw away her career and husband to not have sex with Martin Shkreli.” Kinda funny, right? I thought so. In my opinion, I thought the woman who threw away her values to be with the “Pharma Bro” deserved derision.

But something happened that made it not very funny anymore. Christie Smythe hopped on the Clubhouse app to talk to a bunch of strangers about her story. Suddenly the tweets changed, with many staying that whoever started that Clubhouse channel should shut it down. Christie Smythe does not seem well.

I don’t believe in the internet diagnosing someone so I’m not going to claim that Smythe is not mentally sound, nor am I going to accuse Shkreli of psychopathy and narcissism as many online have already done since this story was published. But in the cold light of the morning after the story’s publication, I read a lot of new messages, many saying that the story wasn’t funny and they felt gross after reading it. So, I took another look, vowing no matter how angry I got, I’d read until the end.

The fact that Elle publicized this story as a Hollywood love story is nothing short of the distribution of trauma porn. And them claiming that there was a “twist ending” coming adds to the issue that whoever greenlit that article cared not for Smythe or that fact that she exists as a real human being. The life that she was left with at the end of the article is not a twist ending. It’s a sad reality in which a woman fell for a man and was left with nothing but pain.

Here’s the spoiler: Smythe continued to cover Shkreli while working as a journalist, even after she developed a relationship with him, completely compromising all journalistic integrity, and she lost her job because of it. She and her husband’s marriage dissolved during this time as well, and she was left with no job and no marriage when this article was greenlit. And because the article was greenlit, Shkreli ghosted her from prison, well and truly leaving her alone in the world. When asked to comment on the article, the man who once said he loved her left the writer of the article with the statement, “Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future endeavors,” long after he had ghosted Smythe. She had hoped that “maybe this will be a reason for him to reach out to me.”

The quotes that Smythe has in the article are unsettling and too familiar.

Throughout the article, there are many quotes from Smythe that, to me, are red flags of a traumatic relationship.

For starters, their relationship started by gaslighting. While Smythe attempted to do her job, when she reached Shkreli for comment on an article, she listed the facts as she knew them and was informed by him that she “had no idea what I was talking about.” She then acknowledged that he was “toying” with her, attempting to draw her in with promises only to not give her what she wanted, so that when he did finally come to talk to her, she felt flattered.

Meanwhile, the image he gave in court was not the image that she saw, giving her a sense that she knew some kind of secret of his. She even came to the conclusion that he may commit suicide. She even recognized, though, that he continued to toy with her, which alarmed her professor, who warned her, “You’re going to ruin your life.” Even still, she claimed to have control over the situation. At no point throughout the entire article does it sound like Smythe had any control over any situation.

While Shkreli bullied other female journalists, she seemed as though she believed she was special, that she was on the outside looking in. “I don’t think he would hurt a woman, even a journalist,” she claimed, while Emily Saul suffered from his “trolling,” which Smythe claimed he did due to his “anxiety.”

Her husband warned her that Shkreli was using her. She claimed he was just micromanaging her career. She would later opt to visit Shkreli in prison rather than attend couples counseling with her husband. Her social media became dedicated to clearing his name, from the valid (although some claim that Shkreli is related to the EpiPen price hike, it was indeed not connected to him) to the absurd (why should it matter to anyone that he’s not 5 foot 7 inches?).

As the story continues into a time in which Smythe has no marriage and no job anymore, her quotes get more alarming.

“I don’t know if everything he was saying was true, but maybe like 1 percent is, and that’s awesome on its own,” she says of his delusions.

“Doesn’t he look human there?” she says of the one picture they have together.

When he learns of the article and says he doesn’t want her story out, she rationalizes that it’s because he’s concerned for her.

“Maybe this will be a reason for him to reach out to me,” she says of the article, and, “That’s sweet,” when he gives the statement wishing her luck on future endeavors.

And even after the statement, she opts to wait for him until the end of his sentence. “I’m gonna try,” she says. “I’ll be here.”