Unraveling the real-life medical drama of the 'Grey's Anatomy' writer who faked cancer
Liar, liar, world on fire.
TV writer Elisabeth Finch didn’t confine her imaginative fiction to her scripts. In Peacock’s “Anatomy of Lies” (now streaming), the audacious storyteller spun dramatic plots to intensify her personal life, which she presented as the truth. The three-episode docuseries is produced by Vanity Fair studios and based on the magazine's 2022 exposé.
Finch cut her teeth on HBO's “True Blood” in 2009 and wrote for CW's “The Vampire Diaries” from 2012-14. Then she landed her dream job on ABC's “Grey’s Anatomy,” thanks to a 2014 essay she wrote for Elle about her diagnosis of a rare and sometimes fatal bone cancer, chondrosarcoma. (It’s the same cancer that Catherine Avery, Debbie Allen’s character, had in Season 15 of "Grey's," at Finch’s suggestion.)
Luckily for Finch, she didn’t have the disease at all. She went on to write 13 episodes and produce 172 of them from 2014-22.
She concocted lies that were big, like the faked cancer diagnosis; ones that were unforgivable, including claiming she helped clear Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue of human remains after an 2018 shooting; and others that were simply bizarre, including that Anna Paquin had given her a kidney.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs accusedof sexually assaulting minor, multiple rapes in new civil suits
The most chilling revelations are unearthed by Finch’s ex-wife, Jennifer Beyer. The two wed in 2020 and separated the following year.
“I don’t know who my wife is,” Beyer hauntingly recalls in the docuseries, after discovering she’d been a victim caught in Finch’s web of deceit.
Here are the most shocking moments from “Anatomy of Lies.”
How did Elisabeth Finch fake cancer?
Finch took many steps to pull off her cancer con. She applied bandages to her chest to mimic a chemotherapy port, former “Grey’s” writer Kiley Donovan says in the docuseries.
Andy Reaser, another of Finch’s former colleagues, says Finch would wrap her head in a scarf to conceal supposed hair loss from chemo treatments. He says Finch would excuse herself to go to the bathroom to throw up following treatment, and he was fooled: “It started to really feel I’m going to attend this person’s funeral.”
What did Elisabeth Finch say about the Tree of Life synagogue shooting?
After learning of the attack on Oct. 27, 2018, Finch hurriedly left work and texted her "Grey's" colleagues that she was headed to Pittsburgh. Finch, who claims to have attended services at the synagogue, claimed that she knew some of the 11 victims.
Reaser believed Finch helped by staying there and collecting remains.
Finch tweeted: “I spent sunup to sundown cleaning up what was left of my friend after the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting.”
Finch had a history of reaching for relevance, Donovan says: “I started to notice that whenever there was something being talked about in the zeitgeist or the news, Finch always seemed to have a connection to it or her own personal experience or story.” She claimed she had an abortion while undergoing chemotherapy so she wouldn't have to pause her treatments. “It felt like abortion was another subject that Finch owned,” Donovan says.
Zoe Saldaña:Spielberg 'restored my faith' in big movies after 'Pirates of the Caribbean'
How did Elisabeth Finch get caught?
In May 2019, Finch checked into a wellness facility seeking treatment for PTSD using the pseudonym Jo, a character she wrote for on the show. There, Finch met Beyer, a nurse who checked herself into the center to deal with her own trauma. The father of Beyer's five children physically and emotionally abused and stalked her. (When he died by suicide, Finch commandeered the story, telling her colleagues that it was her brother who had shot himself. Finch said she had to make the decision to remove him from life support.)
Months after their 2020 wedding, Beyer noticed a troubling pattern.
“It’s like other people are getting attention, so Finch is triggered,” Beyer says. “She needs the attention on her. She needs the care.”
Beyer also noticed inconsistences in Finch’s stories, which she tried to check using Finch’s social media. Although Beyer says Finch told her she was in Pittsburgh on the day of the synagogue shooting, she was pictured wearing a Halloween costume and partying with friends. Beyer also realized Finch didn’t have a port for her cancer treatments or a lingering scar.
“The reality of my story started hitting,” Beyer says, “‘I met a woman at a mental hospital. I let her into my home. I let her into my kids’ lives. She lied to me, and I had no clue at all.’”
Beyer says that when she confronted Finch, the writer again tried to lie her way out of it, saying she once had cancer. Then she finally admitted to being “untruthful,” confessing with “no emotion, no fear,” Beyer notes. Finch also admitted she wasn't at the synagogue when Beyer confronted her with evidence.
Because she believed “Grey’s Anatomy” co-creator Shonda Rhimes deserved to know the truth, Beyer wrote an email informing Rhimes of Finch’s deceptions. After being placed on administrative leave, Finch resigned from the series in 2022.
What has Elisabeth Finch said?
Beyer says in the docuseries that Finch attributed her lies to an incessant need for attention.
Journalist Peter Kiefer of The Ankler. writing after his conversations with Finch in 2022, said she was “adamant that her compulsive lying was solely a product of her real-life trauma: The allegations of childhood beatings from her brother, triggered later in life by the silence and loneliness that came after her knee replacement surgery at age 34.
“It was one hell of a recovery period, and then it was dead quiet because everyone naturally was like, 'Yay! You’re healed,'” Kiefer says Finch told him. “But it was dead quiet. And I had no support and went back to my old maladaptive coping mechanism – I lied and made something up because I needed support and attention, and that’s the way I went after it. That’s where that lie started – in that silence.”