The twisted lies of Elisabeth Finch, the Grey’s Anatomy writer who faked having cancer for years, has been the subject of a new documentary titled Anatomy of Lies.
Finch, who wrote on the show for years, had her lies about faking cancer revealed by her now ex-wife Jennifer Beyer.
Beyer contacted Grey’s Anatomy’s production studio Shondaland, which is run by the show’s creator Shonda Rhimes, and informed them of Finch’s deceptions.
Finch was then put on leave, and quit the show before any formal investigation was made.
Her lies were publicised in an article by Hollywood newsletter The Ankler, with Vanity Fair also later providing additional context.
As detailed in the articles in The Ankler and Vanity Fair in May of 2022, Beyer became suspicious not just when elements of Finch’s life refused to add up – but when elements of her own life and trauma began infiltrating her stories.
In a follow up interview with The Ranker in December of 2022, Finch admitted she had lied, not just about her cancer diagnosis but about a host of stories.
Elisabeth Finch’s lies are now the focus of a docuseries (Peacock)
These ranged from making up a connection to a terrorist attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, to faking her brother’s suicide to explain time away from the show.
Finch met Beyer in 2019 in a mental health facility, with the two becoming engaged soon after.
At the time, Beyer was recovering from an abusive marriage to her ex-husband.
In the documentary, Beyer says regarding her relationship with Finch: “When you love somebody, you’ll ignore red flags until they’re hitting you in the head.”
She realised things were awry in part when elements of her own life were being used for storylines in Grey’s Anatomy.
One of these involved a character, Jo, who was suffering abuse at the hands of her partner.
Finch worked as a writer on Grey’s Anatomy (Peacock)
Elements of Beyer’s life were being taken for this storyline written predominantly by Finch, who also became the ‘cancer expert’ in the writers’ room and wrote several storylines inspired by her lies.
When her ex-wife’s abusive ex-husband committed suicide, Finch raced off to be with her and her family – and help look after Beyer’s kids.
Unbeknownst to her, Finch sent an email to her work colleagues, claiming her brother had killed himself and that’s why she had been away.
Her brother, a doctor, was and is still alive.
While this would not come out immediately, she would later discover this – causing her to put the pieces together.
The pair met in 2019 (Peacock)
Another claim that led to her lies being discovered involved Finch being rushed to hospital and a doctor claiming her ‘kidneys’ were fine.
This was a shock – as the writer had claimed she only had one working kidney.
Finch also took various details of her therapist’s life as her own.
All these led Beyer to re-examine elements of her life – realising for example that while Finch claimed to have had chemo, she had no chemo port scar on her chest.
As a result, she eventually put the pieces together, and realised the lie her wife had been living.
Beyer would later, once she put all the pieces together and amid messy divorce proceedings, be the one to put an end to Finch’s career.
Ahead of the release of Anatomy of Lies, Finch released a statement on Instagram which read: “I’ve given no one any reason to believe a word I say. I lied about so much; things so many people have been devastated by in real life. ‘I’m sorry’ feels like the smallest words compared to what I’ve done, yet they are the truest.”
After discussing her relationship with her now ex-wife, Finch went on to say that she had been focused on centring her life on ‘the truth’.
She continued: “The truth is, there is no excuse, no justification – nothing will ever make my lies to anyone okay.
“Nothing erases the trauma I caused – the fear, the pain, the anger, the tears, the time.
“And nothing matters more to me than holding myself accountable in every way. I will continue to repair whatever damage I can and ensure I am not the worst things I’ve done.
“I recognise all of this will take time for people to believe.
“I will work and wait as long as it takes.”
