Ousted Grey's Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch admits to lies about medical and personal history
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Elisabeth Finch, a television writer revered for her work as a consulting producer on Grey's Anatomy, has admitted to fabrications about her life several months after various exposés unraveled a web of lies pertaining to her medical and personal history.
Finch — who resigned from the medical drama in March after she was placed on administrative leave so Disney could investigate — told The Ankler that she "never had any form of cancer," nor did her older brother Eric commit suicide, lies that she told during her time on the Shonda Rhimes series. Eric is, in fact, alive, and currently works as a doctor in Florida.
"It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and got buried deeper and deeper inside me," she said of the lies, adding, "I know it's absolutely wrong what I did. I lied and there's no excuse for it." But there is "context for it," Finch said. "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."
Mitch Haaseth/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Elisabeth Finch (center) on set of 'Grey's Anatomy'
"I lied," she said. "That was my coping and my way to feel safe and seen and heard." As a result, Finch's wife left her, family members disowned her, and she's no longer allowed to see her children. She fills her days with long walks and therapy. "I wish I had a grid that would show who's not talking to me because they can't [legally]," Finch said. "Who's not talking to me because they don't know what to say. Who's not talking to me because they're pissed off."
"It's been a very quiet, very sad time," she added. When the exposés came out between March and May of this year, there were people who "were immediately very, very nasty on text," she said. "Family and friends who called me a monster and a fraud and said that's all I'll ever be known for and soon more truth would come out."
Finch has previously claimed that she had a rare form of bone cancer, helped clean the remains of her friend's body from the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh following the 2018 shooting, lost a kidney and part of her leg, and endured abuse by a male director during her time as a writer on The Vampire Diaries. She also wrote about her fabricated medical history for publications like Elle and Shondaland.com, among other publications.
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