‘Anatomy of Lies’: Who is the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ writer Elisabeth Finch and what did she do?

It is a rarity that the people writing dramatic storylines become the ones at the center of it. But that is exactly what happened in the case of Elisabeth Finch.

The figure at the center of Peacock’s new documentary, Anatomy of Lies, the television writer started as almost like a folk figure. Her claim to fame was via some of the most popular — and dramatic — television series on air. Finch gained credibility for writing on long-running shows such as The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and eventually Shonda Rhimes’ medical juggernaut, Grey’s Anatomy. As the trailer for the new documentary states, that should have been enough. However, the writer evidently wanted to be as big as the shows she wrote for. What follows is the bizarre story of a television writer whose lies imploded, leaving massive devastation in its wake.

What happened to Elisabeth Finch?

When Finch joined the writing staff of Grey’s Anatomy in 2014, it was already past its heyday. The show had long since outlived the romantic drama between Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) and McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey). Izzie (Katherine Heigl) had already been diagnosed with cancer, hallucinated her dead fiancé, and left the series. The show’s best character Cristina (Sandra Oh) was making a departure after a decade on the show. Finch was exactly what was needed to revitalize the series with dramatic new stories, mostly because she was pulling them from her own life.

According to The Ankler, the writer had allegedly already endured enough medical tragedies and harassment to last a lifetime. Finch claimed that she had been diagnosed with a bone disease that resulted in chemotherapy and forced her to have an abortion. When undergoing knee replacement surgery, she then learned that she had been misdiagnosed, a tale as old as time. Or at least, a tale meant for the ABC drama she worked on. These stories were only some that she claimed as her own.

She also stated that she had been harassed on the set of The Vampire Diaries and knew someone had died in the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Ultimately, everyone was shocked to discover that these were simply fabrications. It is difficult to say exactly why a writer would feel the need to invent stories. That is what television is for. But these lies became so big that even her wife was shocked to discover they weren’t real. The revelation was reported originally by Vanity Fair in their exposé. Entertainment Weekly also revealed that her claims that her brother had died by suicide were false and that he was in fact alive and well. Finch would go on to try and justify the lies while giving no real reason for the deception.

“It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and got buried deeper and deeper inside me, I know it’s absolutely wrong what I did. I lied and there’s no excuse for it. 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.”

However unsatisfying this explanation is, Anatomy of Lies will attempt to further contextualize it. Or at the very least, show the timeline of events. Fans can get a closer look at this mystifying story when it airs on Peacock on Oct. 15, 2024.