‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Writer Elisabeth Finch Apologizes for Lying About Having Cancer: ‘I Trapped Myself in an Addiction of Lies’
Update: This story has been updated with Jennifer Beyer’s response to Elisabeth Finch’s apology.
On the day of the Oct. 15 premiere of Peacock’s investigative docuseries “Anatomy of Lies” — which examines the long cancer scam perpetrated by former “Grey’s Anatomy” writer Elisabeth Finch — she has offered something new: a full apology for her actions. In a post on Instagram, she begins by writing: “I’ve given no one any reason to believe a word I say. 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.”
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Finch goes on to write that in years since stories in spring 2022 in The Ankler and Vanity Fair exposed her many lies — and revealed her to be a con woman who’d gotten her job on “Grey’s Anatomy” after lying about having chondrosarcoma, a rare cancer — she has “been receiving mental health treatment for nearly three years, and I work hard every day to sustain a life where the truth matters more than anything: The truth is, I married a woman with whom I fell deeply, truly in love.” She then recounts that she fell in love with Jennifer Beyer, a woman she met while they were both in treatment in a mental health facility in Arizona, concluding, “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.”
“Anatomy of Lies,” directed by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall, paints a damning portrait of Finch. The three-part docuseries takes apart all of her lies, especially that she had cancer, a ruse that involved shaving her head, and faking chemo treatments and their side effects. She also lied about being sexually harassed by a director on “The Vampire Diaries” on which she wrote, cleaning up a friend’s remains who’d been murdered in the Tree of Life massacre in 2018 and her brother dying by suicide. Beyer, her now ex-wife, participated in the Peacock docuseries, as did two of her children.
In Variety‘s interview with the docuseries’ directors published today, Peretz said: “We have heard snippets of her reaching out to people still inquiring about jobs. We have heard she has something in the works about her life.”
Perhaps this post is attempting to lead to that. Finch ends with this: “The truth is, there is no excuse, no justification—nothing will ever make my lies to anyone okay. 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.” (Finch’s full apology can be found here.)
On Oct. 19, Beyer responded to Finch’s apology on Facebook. She wrote that she’d been “reflecting” on the apology, and concluded that it is a “clear example of her manipulative tactics at play, rich with deeper implications.”
Beyer goes on to write that the “children and I have explicitly told her never to post or speak about them again,” but Finch has repeatedly violated that request, and did so once again in her Instagram post: “Once again, she is using them to manipulate public opinion in her favor, exploiting their wishes despite their pleas for her to stop. She adamantly refused to agree to stop her postings, claiming it was her first amendment right and got her way.”
Beyer also adds: “On October 8th she edited a video featuring one of my children from the time she lived with us and sent it directly to me, using my child’s voice to convey a passive message. I want to make it clear she has demonstrated no meaningful remorse for her actions toward either me or my children.”
Speaking with Variety, “Anatomy of Lies” co-director Peretz deemed Finch “a scary person.” Beyer clearly agrees, and concludes: “I will not stand by and say nothing while she continues to exploit my children. It has been traumatizing for both me and the children to witness her continue to use them for her own gain, especially after everything she has put us through.”
Read Beyer’s full response to Finch’s apology here.
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