'Grey's Anatomy' Writer Lied About Cancer, PTSD, and Pretty Much Everything
Part 1 in a 2-part series on the Grey's Anatomy writer who incorporated her personal traumas into the show-only the stories turned out not to be her own. By the perpetually barnburning Evgenia Peretz. https://t.co/DmvQCTRFk3
- claire howorth (@clairehoworth) May 2, 2022
Follow up to this post.
Vanity Fair released a two-part write-up detailing the many lies of television writer Elisabeth Finch. Finch has written for True Blood, the Vampire Diaries, and Grey’s Anatomy, the latter of which featured plotlines inspired by Finch's fabricated life stories.
The Cancer Lie Begins
Elisabeth claimed to be diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, a rare and usually fatal form of bone cancer. Not only is chondrosarcoma unheard of in someone Finch’s age, she also claimed to be the only one in her clinical trial who survived. Finch shaved her own head and started wearing a bandage over where presumably a port scar from chemotherapy was.
Finch told her family that there was a good possibility she'd die, and when her parents wanted to join her in Los Angeles to support her, Finch rejected them explaining they were overbearing and impossible to be around. Her brother Eric, a doctor living in Florida, asked to speak with her doctors about her treatment but Finch would not allow him. When friends wanted to accompany her to treatment, Finch declined stating that she did not want the people she loved connected to her cancer memory.
Finch began writing personal essays chronicling her cancer battle with details casting her as a hero, and the doctors as stupid. One of these essay’s caught the attention of Shonda Rhimes and she was hired as a writer for Grey’s Anatomy.
Finch was given special privileges in the writer’s room due to her cancer. When cancer storylines came up, Finch took control of the conversations to the point other cancer survivors felt they could not speak. She would claim to not be able to make deadlines due to her illness and would pull senior writers to pick up her slack. She never offered to return the favor to others. She took frequent weeks long leaves for what she claimed were clinical trials. Everyone put up with it because they thought she was dying, and these could have been her last words.
Her cancer story was written into the episode “Does Anybody Have a Map” (referencing a song from Dear Evan Hansen, a story about a compulsive liar), with Dr. Catherine Avery as Finch’s avatar bravely battling chondrosarcoma. Finch claimed she was hesitant to write her cancer into Grey’s but an email from Rhimes herself convinced her. However, according to the other writers, Finch pitched the idea herself but claimed it may be too triggering for her. When others sympathetically offered to write for her, Finch courageously stated that she could do it.
Kidney Lies (ft. Anna Paquin)
In 2017, Finch lied about needing a kidney transplant due to chemotherapy. She claims to have received a healthy kidney and thanked Anna Paquin, implying that Paquin either gave her a kidney or hooked her up with someone else who did. Paquin and Finch really were friends, having met on True Blood. (Paquin chose not to comment but a source told Vanity Fair that Paquin has nothing to do with Finch’s kidneys.)
Lies about Friend’s Death in Shooting and PTSD
(Trigger warnings for gun violence and antisemitism)
In 2018, following the tragedy where 11 people were killed in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Finch began telling people that a dear friend from college was killed in the shooting. She expounded on this lie by claiming that she had to help clean the body parts off the floor of the synagogue to bury her friend with all of her body parts within 24 hours of her death, in accordance with Jewish burial traditions. She would reference cleaning up her friends remains whenever future mass shootings occurred. (Vanity Fair confirmed with the two Chevra Kadisha burial societies that conducted the cleanup that nobody named Elisabeth Finch was involved.)
Finch lied about getting PTSD from cleaning up the body parts, and the writers had to be careful with their language surrounding guns. Finch would even “dramatically wince” when for example someone complained their idea was “shot down”.
When Catherine Avery’s cancer storyline was played out, Finch set her sights on a new character: Jo Wilson, an abused wife (Finch alleged to base her off a friend). According to another writer, writing the first episode was so stress inducing for Finch that others in the room had to help write it (though Finch was still the only name credited).
Finch told her employer she was suffering from PTSD related to the synagogue shooting and checked in to a mental health clinic in Arizona under the name Jo…
Stealing Her Her Ex-Wife's Abuse Stories
(Trigger warning for domestic abuse and suicide)
While in the clinic as Jo, Finch met Jennifer Beyer, a woman suffering from PTSD following horrific abuse and gaslighting she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Brendan. Finch began mirroring Beyer’s traumatic life and claiming the events as her own.
Finch began displaying signs of PTSD similar to Beyer, which Beyer found comforting feeling as she had someone very successful going through what she was. Under Finch’s suggestion, the two became roommates even though it was not the norm for two in the same processing group to do so.
As they became closer, Finch dropped the Pittsburgh trauma, in favor of a sudden realization that her brother Eric had been violently abusive towards her as a child. This set up another parallel between Finch and Beyer’s lives: Finch’s brother Eric was Finch’s version of Beyer’s abusive ex-husband Brendan.
Carly, a therapist who Beyer had grown close to, had possession of Beyer’s phone where she would receive Brendan’s abusive messages. Brendan threatened to come get Beyer and security was increased at the facility. Seeing the attention Beyer received, Finch claimed that her brother Eric had left a threatening handwritten note inside the photo album her parents had left her during Family Weekend.
When they left the facility, Finch began love-bombing Beyer and the two entered a relationship and would later marry. Finch charmed Beyer’s friends and children and supported her through her court appearances with Brendan in Kansas.
In 2019, Brendan committed suicide, and while comforting Beyer, Finch told everyone at Grey’s Anatomy that her brother Eric had attempted suicide. She said that as a doctor, Eric knew how to shoot himself without killing himself, and so Finch had to fly out to pull the plug on him. Finch flew Beyer out to Hawaii on a trip to a fancy hotel but told the Grey’s staff that she was going to Hawaii to reunite with her dead brother’s illegitimate Filipino baby whose mother was in Hawaii.
The Lies Unravel
At a party celebrating Beyer's son's ballet recital, Finch faked excruciating kidney pain. Beyer insisted on going to the doctor, despite Finch’s resistance. Finch did not mention the cancer to the doctor, so Beyer brought it up herself. After running tests, the doctor told Beyer that both of Finch’s kidneys looked fine, emphasizing that she still had two. All though, Finch tried dismissing him as a stupid doctor, the seed of doubt was planted in Beyer’s mind.
Beyer’s suspicions eventually grew and one day she scrolled backwards through Finch’s Facebook timeline. Beyer saw pictures of Finch bald, but with full eyebrows and eyelashes. She saw pictures of the bandage over a port scar, but Beyer knew there was no scar there. Beyer confronted Finch about the fake cancer and mirroring her own trauma. Finch admitted to it but maintained she was a victim of her brother’s cruelty.
Beyer’s friends sided with Finch as they felt Beyer’s mental state improved with Finch. Finch also hired Carly, Beyer’s trusted therapist who had now moved on to private practice, completing taking away Beyer’s support system. In order to keep her children, Beyer needed Carly’s reports stating she was stable so to keep her children, Beyer was advised to remain in her marriage to Finch. Beyer’s condition to stay was that Finch admit her lies to everyone.
After delaying the confession for months, Beyer held her feet to the fire and even told Finch’s parents herself. According to friends, Finch displayed practice remorse and would shut down when asked more details. Finch never admitted the truth about her brother Eric and according to sources never grappled with what she had done.
While in the process of divorcing Finch, Beyer found out about how Finch used Brendan’s suicide as her own experience with Eric. Beyer began emailing Shonda Rhimes and showrunner Krista Vernoff, but she did not initially receive responses. However, after persisting Beyer was contacted by Disney HR. The network considered an investigation into Finch but did not proceed as Finch took a leave of absence.
Finch began making cryptic posts targeting Beyer. She has hired Andrew Brettler, an LA litigator who represented Prince Andrew, Chris Noth, and Armie Hammer. People who loved and cared for Finch are grappling with why she did it and all the damage she caused.
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
I tried my best to condense everything but I highly recommend reading the two articles. Part 1 is behind a paywall but you can access it through the Wayback Machine.