Featured Image Credit: Peacock/Mitch Haaseth/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Topics: Grey's Anatomy, Cancer, Health
Mia Williams
Topics: Grey's Anatomy, Cancer, Health
The Grey's Anatomy writer, who convinced everyone she had cancer, allegedly took fake 'puke breaks' while on set.
The revelation of Elisabeth Finch's false cancer diagnosis is one that shocked those around her to the absolute core.
Not only did she deceive her friends, family and Grey’s Anatomy co-workers but also her own wife.
Nearly two years on from Finch's admission that she had faked the illness, a new docuseries is looking into each and every fabricated detail.
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Peacock's Anatomy of Lies was released on 15 October and features interviews with those who worked with Finch at the time.
In 2014, Finch told a number of outlets that she had been diagnosed with chondrosarcoma - a type of bone cancer. She also claimed to have lost a kidney and had to undergo an abortion as a result of the alleged chemotherapy treatment.
Andy Reaser was among those that worked with Finch, and described her sick behaviour as a 'performance art'.
In Anatomy of Lies, he recalled: "She was showing up to work with a shaved head and a greenish hue.
"She looked like she lived in a microwave.
"She was eating these saltines and drinking ginger ale and going to the bathroom to take puke breaks from her chemo."
Also a former writer for the show, Reaser noted that he just couldn't understand why Finch chose to lie about such a horrific illness.
"I felt betrayal," he added.
"The thing is, it was so confusing.
"You have to move through eight years of interactions to wrap your head around it.
"I'm not even sure that I still fully have.
"It's just so hard to imagine that someone could commit that strongly to that."
Reaser also said that the writers would spend 'hours upon hours' with each other, noting that she never let the act slip.
Finch lied about having the disease for years, but was finally caught out in 2022 when Vanity Fair published an exposé on her claims - revealing they were, in fact, false.
After the lies were uncovered, she spoke to the Ankler, and admitted for the first time that she had never suffered from any kind of cancer.
Finch said: "I know it’s absolutely wrong what I did.
"I lied and there’s no excuse for it.
"It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and got buried deeper and deeper inside me."
She was put on administrative leave from Grey's Anatomy after the release of the exposé, and later resigned when she admitted to lying.
But this wasn't the only sick and twisted thing that Finch had lied about in her life.
She had also claimed that her brother, who is alive and well, had died from suicide.
Finch hopes that taking accountability for what she has done will help mend some of the relationships that were severed as a result of her dark lies.
Anatomy of Lies is available to stream on Peacock now.