“I didn’t hide how much I interacted with him,” she told The Times. “I do not think I did anything wrong. I realize, in retrospect, maybe earlier I should have acted a little more proactively. But honestly, I don’t think any harm has been done. “
Bloomberg News said it had found no bias in Mrs Shyteli’s coverage of Ms Smythe.
“Miss. Smythe’s behavior towards Mr. Shkreli was not in line with the expectations of a Bloomberg journalist,” a Bloomberg News spokesman said. -he submitted his resignation and I accepted it. “
Ms Smythe said she did not regret dealing with the ethically dangerous issue of covering up for someone for whom she had developed feelings. “In journalism school, I don’t really tell you what to do when that happens,” she said. “I just tried to mix it up and do my best.”
She added: “I had no romantic relationship with him at the time. I hadn’t slept with him. I just missed him. So it’s messy. How are you doing with this? “
Now, it seems, the relationship could be stopped. Ms Smythe said she last saw Mr Shkreli in person in February, when she visited him in a Pennsylvania unit before the pandemic broke out in the United States.
“I talked that day about me doing something in public, and he was in favor of it at the time,” she said. But then, she added, Mr Shkreli was “scared” when the possibility of her becoming public became more real. “He has a lot of PTSD related to media exposure,” said Ms. Smythe, “and he’s kind of attached to his image of a bastard as a kind of safe space.”
She last spoke to him on the phone in the summer and said she was no longer responding to her emails. However, she said, she will wait for Mr. Shkreli, who is due to be released in September 2023.
“I love him,” she said. “I’m here for him.”