Kate McKinnon Drops Out Of Hulu's Elizabeth Holmes Series 'The Dropout'

It looks like the only place we'll be able to see Kate McKinnon's Elizabeth Holmes impression will be Saturday Night Live. The Bombshell actress has dropped out of — well — The Dropout, Hulu's limited drama series about Theranos founder and notorious fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.

Variety reports that Hulu's The Dropout will have to go on ahead without Kate McKinnon, who was originally set to star in and executive produce the limited series about Holmes' rise as one of Silicon Valley's most promising new entrepreneurs before her fall from grace. The Dropout is on the lookout for a new actor to play Holmes before the planned summer production start.

For a refresher since it's been a while since Holmes has been in the headlines: at 19 years old, the college dropout founded Theranos, a company that raised $700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, and was eventually valued at a whopping $10 billion. Holmes' goal was to do for the health industry what Steve Jobs did for tech (even crafting her own public persona around Jobs) by developing the Edison, a device that she claimed could run a large variety of tests from a single drop of blood. But it quickly became clear that this device didn't actually exist, at least in the scope that Holmes and her company claimed. People soon caught on, and Holmes was eventually indicted by a federal jury in 2018 on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Holmes' story already received an HBO documentary in 2019, which is what really cemented the disgraced tech entrepreneur's story into the mainstream, making her the butt of jokes and parodies. Hulu's series is based on ABC Radio and ABC News' podcast, also released in 2019, covering her rise to become one of the richest women in the world, to her indictment. The podcast's host, Rebecca Jarvis, will executive produce The Dropout, and podcast producers Victoria Thompson and Taylor Dunn will also serve as EPs. Assuming, that is, that this show ends up moving forward after having lost its star.

Several other Elizabeth Holmes projects were announced following her indictment, including Bad Blood, based on the book by the same name, starring Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Adam McKay.

While McKinnon won't be able to play Holmes in The Dropout, the SNL star continues to be extremely busy, also starring in a limited series on fellow viral figure Joe Exotic as tiger sanctuary owner Carole Baskin. The Joe Exotic limited series is set to air on NBC, Peacock, and USA Network.