In 2022, one of the juiciest stories in show business was that of Elisabeth Finch, the Grey's Anatomy executive producer who used her own health issues to gain prominence as a writer on the show (pictured on the far right above, in a cameo appearance on the show). Like the faux Felicity wunderkind before her, Finch was making up fictions in both her personal and professional life. But Finch wasn't just lying about her age; she was lying about having cancer, and allegedly made up a whole host of stories about suffering abuse and trauma. Peacock's new docuseries Anatomy Of Lies, premiering October 15, will delve into Finch's tall tales from the perspective of the people she fooled.
There are some of Finch's former Grey's coworkers featured in the trailer, but most notably the series centers on Jen Beyer, Finch's ex-wife and a nurse. Beyer had just left an abusive 18-year marriage when she met Finch while at a treatment center for PTSD. She got swept up in Finch's Hollywood lifestyle and in her various untruths. Beyer managed to uncover Finch's lies, and eventually shared her story with Vanity Fair contributing editor Evgenia Peretz, who wrote the exposé on Finch and went on to co-direct the docuseries with filmmaker David Schisgall.
Peretz told VF that the project couldn't have been made without Beyer's trust. The nurse even contributed her own personal photos and videos of her life with Finch. "The big breakthrough in the making of the film is when she said, 'I want my older kids to talk to you,'" the journalist recalled, adding that the children’s perspectives "deepened the story and added just an amazing layer to it."
Those who were not part of the project include Finch (who has owned up to the cancer lie, but not all of the fabrications she's been accused of) and her former boss, Shonda Rhimes. "I think Shondaland wanted this story to go away," Peretz said. "But there were several people at Grey’s who felt like what they went through helping [Finch] out, thinking their friend was going to die, going to bat for her—it was traumatic for them. So they didn’t want to just sweep the whole thing under the rug…. They did sacrifice for her. They did help her write her scripts. They gave her time off. They gave her love and sympathy. They cried with her. It was no joke."
