Anatomy of Lies' Biggest Bombshells: How Former Grey’s Anatomy Writer Elisabeth Finch Allegedly Faked Cancer, Past Trauma

Nearly two years ago, the web of lies came crashing down for Elisabeth Finch, a former writer and consulting producer on Grey’s Anatomy.

The new Peacock docuseries, Anatomy of Lies, explores how Finch allegedly faked her own medical history, made up allegations of abuse and betrayed her loved ones — including estranged wife Jenn Beyer — and colleagues as she ascended the ranks of the hit ABC medical drama.

As the accusations against Finch came to light, she was placed on temporary leave from her duties on the series in March 2022 as Disney Television Studios investigated the claims about her personal and medical history. 

At the time, Finch’s attorney Andrew B. Brettler issued a statement on her behalf to PEOPLE. “Ms. Finch is not going to discuss her private health matters. Likewise, she will not speak about her pending divorce from her estranged wife, Jennifer Beyer, or comment on any statements that Ms. Beyer may have made to third parties about Ms. Finch,” he said.

Brettler did not return PEOPLE’s request for comment on the new docuseries, which premiered on Tuesday, Oct. 15. However, Finch did share a post on social media the day the series aired admitting she “lied about so much.”

Finch resigned in 2022, before admitting to some of her lies in a December interview that year with The Ankler. Read on for a look at the biggest bombshells from Peacock’s Anatomy of Lies.

Elisabeth Finch in “Anatomy of Lies”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK

PEOPLE’s Most Shocking Scandals

Faking Cancer

In February 2014, Elisabeth Finch — who has previously written for True Blood and Vampire Diaries — revealed in a Elle magazine article that she was living with chondrosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. The article caught the attention of Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes and she was soon hired as a writer on the series.

At one point, the show was considering letting Finch go, but were allegedly told by executives, “You can’t fire Finchy. Finchy has cancer. She has to stay on the show,” according to former Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal writer Mark Wilding.

ABC and Shondaland did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Elisabeth Finch on “Grey’s Anatomy”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK

Finch’s former coworkers remembered her appearing ill at work. “There was a day in the writer’s room that she was wearing sort of like a low cut sweater,” former Grey’s Anatomy writer Kiley Donovan shared. “And I noticed for the first time that I could see her chemo port on her chest, and I’d never seen one on a person.”

“Finch was taking breaks to go to the bathroom and throw up from the chemo, and it started to really feel like I’m going to attend this person’s funeral, but my sense that I got from her is that she didn’t want to confide in people about her cancer,” former Grey’s Anatomy writer Andy Reaser recalled but added that she openly discussed her diagnosis on social media.

Donovan added, “It did feel sometimes like two different Finches.”

Finch’s medical history led her to become the “cancer expert in the room” and she wrote a storyline, in which Debbie Allen’s character Catherine Avery was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, the same type of cancer she claimed to have.

A Fictitious Visit to the Tree of Life Synagogue

Finch claimed to have ties to the Tree of Life Synagogue following the Oct. 27, 2018 shooting and raced to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the tragedy.

“We found that Finch had gone to that synagogue in the past and knew some of the people who were murdered,” Reaser shared.

At the time, she tweeted, “As someone who stood amidst the Pittsburgh Synagogue carnage, I’ll just say: My heart is broken. My brain is broken.”

However, Wilding recalled that he saw some red flags in Finch’s story, saying, “I remember talking to Andy Reiser, and I said, ‘Do you understand how odd that sounds? The fact that she had to go in, you know, scoop up her friends’ brains?’ I mean, that’s pretty heavy duty. Also, the FBI is there. It’s a crime scene. And he said, ‘You know, I’m a Christian, and I don’t necessarily know all the tenets of the Jewish faith.’ I certainly didn’t think to question her.”

Ex-‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Staffer Admits She ‘Lied’ About Having Cancer, Brother’s Suicide 9 Months After Probe

On-Set Accusations

Finch also came forward with claims of harassment by an unnamed director on the set of Vampire Diaries in a 2018 Hollywood Reporter article, which was later removed from the site due to Finch’s fabrications, according to an editor’s note.

“Three minutes into a rehearsal on my episode of The Vampire Diaries, the director screams, ‘If I wanted to talk to a nagging c—, I’d go home to my wife.’ I laugh for every damn day of that shoot. Laugh through his food jokes about actresses’ bodies and lingering hugs and clammy hands on the back of my neck, giving me massages I never want but allow anyway,” she wrote, per the docuseries.

Lisina Stoneburner, a former acting coach on The Vampire Diaries, doubted the accusations, calling them “very surprising” in the docuseries.

The closing credits notes, “Finch has never publicly retracted her accusations against the unnamed Vampire Diaries director.”

Silent All These Years

Donovan revealed in Anatomy of Lies that she told Finch her “biological father was my mother’s rapist,” which she had not yet “processed” at the time.

After the conversation, Donovan claimed that Finch started writing the acclaimed 2019 Grey’s Anatomy episode, “Silent All These Years,” in which Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) treats a patient was assaulted and has flashbacks to learning she was conceived from rape.

In the episode, the female cast and crew members were invited to line the hallways in one scene, and Finch can be seen walking beside the gurney in promotional photos for the episode.

“And just even hearing that story, I have not even told this story myself, and I’m a writer, like I haven’t even had the chance to figure out if I want to tell this story, and now it’s an episode, and it was really starting to bug me that this is going to the high profile episode post-Me Too,” Donovan said.

Elisabeth Finch on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy”.
Mitch Haaseth/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

“But looking back, it was super painful,” she added. “It just felt really felt weird and wrong, and I never confronted Finch about it, because it felt a I was a lower level writer, and she was a co-executive producer and was being heralded for this amazing script, and it didn’t feel like I had a leg to stand on, or that it was appropriate.”

In a previous interview, Finch claimed that she wrote the episode “by myself” after asking to not have a writer’s room for the emotional story.

The closing credits notes, “Finch has said that the Kavanaugh hearings inspired Grey’s Anatomy episode Silent All These Years. Actor Camilla Luddington has said that those hearings inspired her to suggest the storyline of her character, Jo, being conceived by rape.”

Blending Reality and Fiction

After the “Silent All These Years” episode, Finch became increasingly interested in the storyline of Jo Wilson on Grey’s Anatomy and pushed for the character to go “down a really dark path,” according to Donovan.

Donovan noted that Finch decided “the only option was for Jo to go into inpatient treatment.” Not long after, Reaser shared that Finch allegedly had “a complete breakdown” and went to receive treatment for PTSD at Sierra Tuscon, a mental health facility in Arizona.

“Finch had checked herself into a facility in Arizona. She checked in under the name of Jo, the character on the show that she was dealing with, which seemed very strange,” Reaser recalled.

While receiving treatment, she met another patient named Jenn Beyer, who was also struggling from PTSD due the alleged abuse she suffered from her husband.

Elisabeth Finch on “Anatomy of Lies”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK

“Jenn’s story was obviously super intense, so Jenn would have a lot of these trauma triggers…” Margaret Fita, a former treatment center resident, recalled. “And Jo would talk about that as if she also had all of that.”

“Jo seemed very interested in my therapy sessions with Carly, my therapist,” Beyer explained. “I started this new treatment called EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which helps you process trauma.”

Finch’s friend Aurora Lee Passin shared that Finch claimed that her brother, Eric, assaulted her as a child when she visited her at the facility. While at the center, she allegedly received a threatening letter from her brother after Jenn received similar threats from her husband.

During a therapy session with her parents, Finch discussed the alleged abuse, which left her parents “very confused.” During this session, Beyer also learned of Finch’s cancer diagnosis.

When she returned to Grey’s Anatomy, Finch wrote an episode called “Breathe Again,” which featured Jo going through EMDR and a therapist named Carly.

The closing credits notes, “Finch has never publicly retracted her accusations against her brother.”

Eric did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Falling in Love

Finch and Beyer remained in communication after their stay at Sierra Tuscon. In July 2019, Finch invited Beyer to visit her in California, where the pair admitted they had feelings for each other.

“I felt like I was in some fictional fairytale movie, I just had never experienced anything like that,” she recalled. “At some point, I looked at her and I said, ‘I think I think I like you. I think I really like you.’ And she’s like, ‘I really, really like you, too.’ Then we kissed.”

“I have massive trust issues, so I need honesty no matter what,” she added. “And Finch was always telling me, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you.”

From left: Elisabeth Finch and Jenn Beyer on “Anatomy of Lies”.

PEACOCK

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Staffer Placed on Administrative Leave amid Investigation Into Her Medical History

Alleged Lies About Her Brother’s Suicide

In September 2019, Beyer learned that her husband had died by suicide while visiting Finch in Los Angeles. The couple then raced back to Beyer’s home state of Kansas.

Finch allegedly told her Grey’s Anatomy coworkers that her brother Eric had been the one who had attempted to take his own life and was on life support at a hospital. She later claimed that he had died.

Donovan claimed Finch had told her coworkers that her brother “had left some sort of note implicating Finch for the reason that he did that,” alluding to Finch’s allegations of abuse.

“It was such a dramatic story that it could have come straight out of Grey’s Anatomy,” she added. “And in fact, we did do an episode many years ago where Meredith recalled her mother’s attempted suicide under very similar circumstances.”

Elisabeth Finch on “Anatomy of Lies”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK

In reality, Finch was spending with Beyer and her five children in the aftermath of her husband’s suicide.

She later bemoaned missing the Emmys, Beyer’s daughter recalled. “That night, I’m sitting on the porch, and Finch is like, ‘Gee, I’m kind of sad. She’s like, well, I’m sad for you. You know you’re going through a rough time, but I’m missing the Emmys.’ … She said ‘I was supposed to get one, and I turned it down. There’s a red carpet event, and everyone’s texting and asking me where I am.’ And then she started crying, but just said, ‘There’s no place I’d rather be than here with you, but I’m supposed to be there right now.’”

Reaser and Donovan confirmed that Finch was never nominated for an Emmy.

Her Fabricated Kidney Surgery

Finch and Beyer got engaged in November 2019. One month later during a party at Beyer’s home, Finch complained she wasn’t feeling well.

“She was complaining that she knew she had a kidney stone because she’d had him before, and that’s a big concern, because she had told me she only had one functioning kidney because chemotherapy had destroyed the other,” Beyer explained. “So I was really worried about her.”

However, at the hospital, Beyer claimed learned that Finch did not have a kidney stone and both of her kidneys were intact. Beyer explained, “But when you love somebody, you’ll ignore red flags ’til they’re hitting in the head.”

Two months later, the couple were married.

Elisabeth Finch on “Anatomy of Lies”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK)

Meanwhile, back in March 2017, Finch had claimed had told coworkers that she received a kidney transplant from True Blood star Anna Paquin.

“When I first started working with Finch, I heard through the cloud of rumors that she lost a kidney because of the chemo, and her good friend, Anna Paquin, is giving her a kidney,” Donovan claimed. “I remember being like, Wow. I had no idea that they were that close. What a selfless move like this is amazing.”

Wilding remembered a similar story, alleging, “Finchy hinted very strongly that Anna Paquin didn’t want anyone else to know about it. When she went to get her surgery, Finchy had a friend texting people at Grey’s about how the surgery was going on Finchy’s phone. We heard the actual kidney operation was very touch and go, to the point where some of the writers told me that Shonda [Rhimes] was crying the night of the operation because she felt that Finch might die.”

Uncovering the Truth

By October 2020, Beyer realized things weren’t aligning when it came to Finch.

“I started noticing a pattern for her. It’s like other people are getting attention so Finch is triggered,” she shared in the docuseries. “She needs the attention on her. She needs the care. And then I realized there’s something going on there, and things are not matching up.”

Beyer then searched social media for answers and began to unravel the truth.

“I started looking at her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, comparing her stories to what she’s told me and what she’s posting online,” she explained. “I was scrolling as far as I could scroll, but then all of a sudden, I find there’s posts the date of the [Tree of Life Synagogue] shooting. She’s not in Pittsburgh. She’s at a bar with her friends. She told me she was there. Things aren’t matching up at all. What the hell is happening?”

From left: Jenn Beyer and Elisabeth Finch on “Anatomy of Lies”.

Jennifer Beyer/PEACOCK

She also discovered photos of Finch with the chemo part showing on her chest, which came as a surprise to Beyer, who is a nurse.

“Looking at these pictures, there would have been a scar, and she has nothing. She does not have a port scar. Oh my God, oh my god, she doesn’t have cancer,” she recalled thinking.

Beyer quickly realized that their relationship had been a lie, saying, “The reality of my story started hitting us like 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.”

Coming Clean

Beyer confronted Finch with all the information she had found, beginning with telling Finch she did not have cancer.

“She took a deep breath, and said ‘I did have cancer, but I don’t have any more,’” she recalled. “She just kept [the] story going, and I just kept repeating, like you don’t have cancer. She finally said, ‘Yes, I’ve been untruthful’ and no emotion, no fear.”

“You wish she would just have a moment of like a f—ed up and really mean it,” she added. 

The conversation continued with Beyer naming off various lies which Finch had allegedly told.

“And then I just remember moving forward, and just starting the list, you didn’t clean up your friend’s body, you weren’t at the Tree of Life synagogue, and she kind of made a face as if I was just cruel and invalidating something that was so horrific. And I just said, ‘I looked back on your Facebook, you weren’t there.’ She was sitting there,” she said. “I said, ‘Do you even know anybody in there? And she said, ‘No.’ And I said that threatening letter your brother wrote. That wasn’t real. You wrote it. That was you who wrote it. You faked out all of that. And then she said, ‘Yes, I wrote it. Are you done yet?’”

After attempting to move forward in marriage counseling, Finch told Beyer she was leaving and wanted a divorce. The pair are still in the process of getting a divorce, according to the docuseries.

Beyer ultimately decided to email Rhimes about what she had uncovered about Finch.

“She was manufacturing so many different truths,” Andy Reaser said. “I was like, ‘What kind of monster? What are you even this doesn’t compute with me at any on any level.'”

“I felt betrayal. It’s just the thing is, it was so confusing,” he continued. “You have to move through eight years of interactions to even wrap your head around it. And I’m not even sure that I still fully have. I mean, this was like performance art. She was showing up to work with a shaved head and, you know, 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. I’ve heard people say she had gone to where all the medical props were and wanted to look at a very specific piece of something. For all I know, she had a Lego tape to her chest.”

Wilding added, “I really felt for some of my former colleagues, it was terrible what she put them through over a number of years, she was like an emotional terrorist.” 

After announcing her resignation from Grey’s Anatomy, Finch admitted to lying in a 2022 interview with The Ankler.

“I know it’s absolutely wrong what I did,” she shared at the time. “I lied and there’s no excuse for it. But there’s context for it. The best way I can explain it is when you experience a level of trauma a lot of people adopt a maladaptive coping mechanism. Some people drink to hide or forget things. Drug addicts try to alter their reality. Some people cut. I lied. That was my coping and my way to feel safe and seen and heard.”

Finch’s Statement

On Oct. 15, Finch released a statement on Instagram.

“I’ve given no one any reason to believe a word I say,” she began. “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. I trapped myself in the addiction of lies, betraying and traumatizing my closest family, friends, and colleagues. I’m making amends and expressing my genuine remorse as best I can when people are ready. And I’ve accepted the fact that some may never be. I’ve been receiving mental health treatment for nearly three years, and I work hard every day to sustain a life where the trust matters more than anything.”

She continued, “The truth is, I married a woman with whom I fell deeply, truly in love. Jennifer Dawn had five kids I came to love as my own quickly, fiercely, unconditionally — and still do to this day. Days into us first dating, she got down on one knee and proposed with pieces of lavender strung together into a ring. The biggest mistake of my life (alongside lying about cancer in the first place) was saying ‘yes’ to Jennifer’s proposal before I was honest with her.”

“The truth is, there is no excuse, no justification—nothing will ever make my lies to anyone okay,” she concluded. “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 recognize all of this will take time for people to believe.”

She added, “I will work and wait as long as it takes.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Anatomy of Lies is now streaming on Peacock.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education