With more than 20 seasons, “Grey’s Anatomy”, the American medical series created by Shonda Rimes, has enjoyed worldwide success and brings together a strong community of fans. “Anatomy of Lies”, which tells the behind the scenes of this soap opera, could she follow suit? Available since Tuesday, October 15 on the American platform Peacock, the content of this documentary series seems even more difficult to believe than the adventures – sometimes capillotracted – of the successful medical show.
“Anatomy of Lies” looks back on the lies of Elisabeth Finch, who worked as a screenwriter for “Grey’s Anatomy”, but also “True Blood” or “The Vampire Diaries”, and on the determination of a journalist for the unmask.
An illness, a shooting and a suicide
“Finchie,” as she was known in the writers’ room, wrote several episodes for Shonda Rimes’ series about chondrosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer that she reportedly developed in 2012 (and which she has spoken about publicly in essays for Elle, in particular, recalls The Guardian). Testifying about her traumatic experience and transforming it into a quality television product earned her the attention of Hollywood and the acclaim of Shonda Rimes.
Elisabeth Finch has become known for other public speaking engagements in which she discusses her abortion during cancer treatment, the sexual assault she allegedly suffered on the set of “Vampire Diaries,” the death of a friend, killed in the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, or the time she had to disconnect her brother’s life support machine after the latter’s suicide attempt.
But, in May 2022, an investigation tarnished her image: Vanity Fair journalist Evgenia Peretz revealed that all these traumatic experiences that Elisabeth Finch said she had experienced were false. “She made friends with very empathetic people and used that empathy,” the journalist told the Guardian.
“She’s not who I thought she was.”
The episodes of “Anatomy of Lies” adapt several articles by Evgenia Peretz for the screen. Colleagues and friends deny the screenwriter’s testimonies: Elizabeth Finch never had cancer: her hair loss was orchestrated, her scar, her vomiting and even her abortion were false. “We worked with a person who not only said they had cancer, but looked like they had cancer,” one of his colleagues told The Ankler. A person “who was losing hair, whose skin was yellow and green, who had a visible chemo bandage, who took regular vomiting breaks, who ate only crackers for long periods of time, and who wrote and talked incessantly of his experiences,” he lists.
Also, the screenwriter didn’t know anyone at the Tree of Life Synagogue and her brother didn’t die of suicide. After these revelations, Shondaland and parent company Disney placed Elisabeth Finch on administrative leave, and she ultimately left the show. Contacted, the screenwriter did not wish to participate. Her only statement on the subject remains an interview given in December 2022 to The Ankler, in which she admitted to having lied about her cancer.
Evgenia Peretz, who is also co-director of “Anatomy of Lies”, insisted that it had been difficult to convince people to testify against “Finchie”: “A lot of people (…) are saying: I’m afraid of this person, I don’t know what they’re capable of because they’re not who I thought they were. It took a lot for people to get over that fear.”