Throwing up at work, wearing a fake chemo patch and suffering 'breakdowns' on set: Inside the astonishing web of lies spun by a Grey's Anatomy scriptwriter - and the small detail that finally caught her out
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After emotionally announcing that she had cancer, Elisabeth Finch began turning up for work – pale, ill and obviously shaken – wearing a low-cut shirt. It revealed what her colleagues believed to be a chemo port – a small, implantable device that delivers chemotherapy drugs and other infusions – on her chest.
![[Elisabeth Finch, left, with wife Jenn Beyer - the couple are now divorcing after Jenn was the first to see through Elisabeth's duplicity]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/06/20/93797013-14256109-image-a-13_1736194973259.jpg)
Her colleagues' sympathies were only heightened when they heard Finch being sick in the bathroom – a side-effect, they presumed, of the chemotherapy. The truth, though, was rather different. For it turned out that Finch, then 37, had fabricated her cancer diagnosis, as well as lying about an astonishing array of other things, including claiming a friend had been killed in a mass shooting.
![[After her falsehoods were uncovered, the now 46-year-old took a leave of absence in March 2022, before resigning and admitting she had 'lied about so much']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/06/20/93797099-14256109-image-a-14_1736195202901.jpg)
In short, she was a truly convincing actress – as talented as any of those she wrote for in her job as a scriptwriter for the blockbuster medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. So extraordinary is Finch's story that it has been depicted in the docuseries Anatomy Of Lies – now available to stream in the UK – and, indeed, the real-life drama is even more gripping than some of the plot lines she concocted. Friends and colleagues she fooled so effectively have been left furious at her intricate deceptions.
![[Elisabeth was even inspired by her own fake cancer diagnosis to write a dramatic storyline called Anybody Have A Map?, in which a character, Catherine Avery, played by US actress and dancer Debbie Allen (pictured), was diagnosed with the same type of bone cancer]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/06/20/93797039-14256109-image-a-15_1736195247057.jpg)
'She used her pretend cancer as a way to move up the ladder at Grey's and also as a cudgel against anyone who might speak against her,' former Grey's writer – and head writer of another mega TV hit, Scandal – Mark Wilding told the Mail exclusively. 'In 31 years in the business, I've never encountered anything remotely like this.'.
