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American television writer Elisabeth Finch, who once served as a consulting producer on ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy, has admitted to concocting lies about her health just "for attention."
In an interview with The Ankler published on Tuesday, December 6, Finch revealed that she made up the stories about battling cancer, having an abortion, and a family member's suicide to cope with childhood trauma, admitting that what she did "was wrong."
"What I did was wrong. Not okay. F**ked up. All the words."
However, she tried explaining the context behind her lies and 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. I lied. That was my coping and my way to feel safe and seen and heard.”
Elisabeth Finch's lies began after she had surgery years ago
During the interview, Elisabeth Finch revealed that she began fabricating stories to garner attention in 2007 after she liked getting constant care following a knee replacement surgery.
“Everyone was so amazing and so wonderful leading up to all the surgeries. They were so supportive. And then I got my knee replacement. It was one hell of a recovery period and then it was dead quiet because everyone naturally was like Yay! You’re healed."
Finch confessed that after she recovered, she "needed support and attention," and that's when she started lying about her personal life and "went back to my old maladaptive coping mechanism."
Elisabeth Finch began working on Grey's Anatomy in 2014. At the time, she pretended to undergo chemotherapy for her cancer, claiming that she had lost a kidney and a part of her tibia bone. She also claimed that all this forced her to have an abortion.
Finch also concocted lies about the suicide of her older brother Eric, who is alive and practicing in Florida as a doctor. In her recent interview, Elisabeth stated that her older brother "abused" her when she was a kid, which resulted in the "trauma."
It was actually her now ex-wife, Jennifer Beyer, whose background as a nurse started her suspicions about Finch's stories. She found out that the writer had lied to her friends and family for several years and ultimately broke the news to Grey's Anatomy producers.
The writer's story began to unfold after the news publication, Ankler, started investigating. The news outlet called out Finch's claims of battling health issues and s*xual abuse allegations made by her on a male director while she was serving as a writer on The Vampire Diaries.
Before Disney launched a probe, Elisabeth resigned from the series and began taking professional help by checking into an Arizona facility that helps women with multiple disorders.
Before her lies got caught, Elisabeth Finch fabricated several stories about her personal life, which made their way to the medical drama storylines and also got published in outlets like Elle and The Hollywood Reporter.
