‘Grey’s Anatomy’ writer took puke breaks while faking cancer (exclusive)

It took serious commitment.

In the new three-part documentary Anatomy of Lies, writer and producer Andy Reaser, a former colleague of Elisabeth Finch, the Grey’s Anatomy writer and consulting producer who later confessed to having faked cancer, explains just how far Finch went to make her story believable.

“This was like performance art,” Reaser says in the exclusive clip above. “She was showing up to work with a shaved head and a, you know, a greenish hue. She looked like she lived in a microwave. She was eating these Saltines and drinking ginger ale and going to the bathroom to take puke breaks from her chemo.”

Reaser even heard talk that Finch had been looking at the medical props of the long-running Shonda Rhimes series.

Finch admitted in December 2022 that she didn’t actually have cancer — and that was just one of the lies she had told about herself. She had been placed on administrative leave from the show that spring, and she resigned shortly afterward.

Anatomy of Lies is based on a two-part Vanity Fair story by Evgenia Peretz, who directed the docuseries alongside David Schisgall, who’s worked on previous projects for the magazine brand. In this one, the story will be told through people who were some of Finch’s closest contacts.

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In Reaser’s case, the whole situation left him puzzled, because keeping up the story had to have been so heavy. He had known Finch for years.

“It was so confusing. You have to move through eight years of interactions to even wrap your head around it,” he says. “And I’m not even sure that I still fully have.”

Anatomy of Lies premieres Oct. 15 on Peacock.