Grey's Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch has confessed she made up a story of battling cancer

Elisabeth Finch seemed to have it all. She was a writer on Grey's Anatomy, sometimes making cameo appearances in scrubs, and had just married her partner in 2020. Life, on paper, seemed good.

Yet, Elisabeth was hiding a secret. And she confessed in full to that awful web of lies she had begun after a real life knee injury in 2007.

She told producers at Grey's Anatomy she was battling cancer and had to have an abortion because of her chemotherapy. Finch now confesses that she made it up 'for attention' and has given an interview to The Ankler.

"I told a lie when I was 34 years old and it was the biggest mistake of my life. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and got buried deeper and deeper inside me. I've never had any form of cancer. I know it's absolutely wrong what I did. I lied and there's no excuse for it."

She claims the 'context' of the lie is that she suffered 'years of medical purgatory' after hurting her knee while hiking, and requiring multiple surgeries to fix it.

"What ended up happening is that 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!'"

"But it was dead quiet. And I had no support and went back to my old maladaptive coping mechanism - I lied and made something up because I needed support and attention and that's the way I went after it.

"That's where that lie started - in that silence."

Finch was hired to work on Grey's Anatomy in 2014, and for years pretended that she was forced to undergo gruelling chemotherapy. She claimed the treatment cost her a kidney, part of her tibia and forced her to have an abortion.

She also described her medical ordeal in articles for Elle, The Hollywood Reporter and Shondaland, the website created by Grey's Anatomy producer Shonda Rhymes.

Celine Dion speaks about rare neurological disease diagnosis

Elements of her fake story even ended up in the story lines of Grey's Anatomy.

It wasn't until she met her now ex-wife, Jennifer Beyer, in 2019, that things started to unravel for Elisabeth.

Beyer's background as a nurse piqued her suspicion about Finch's story.

She discovered that she'd lied, and prompted her to tell family and friends. Finch initially told the couple's friends and family but she stopped short of telling her bosses.

That is when Beyer approached Grey's Anatomy producers and told them Finch had lied.

She said that she did not anticipate being found out, and that she felt no need to confess her lies even to her wife.

It's a tragic story of misplaced sympathy and trust from friends, family and colleagues towards Finch and also begs the question, what is the root cause of why she has fabricated such a great deal of her life to illicit sympathy?

Whatever the truth, it degrades the very real pain and exhaustion for true cancer patients who understand what it is to fight for their lives.

Finch has apologised and hopes to work again as a writer.