‘She preyed upon that empathy’: the TV writer who faked having cancer

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction – even when the fiction is the overwrought drama and bizarre medical mysteries of Grey’s Anatomy. For seven years, Elisabeth Finch, a TV writer with credits on True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, helped craft the credulity-straining and tear-jerking plotlines on the long-running ABC medical soap, with a particular knack for bringing the show into the social media zeitgeist via personal experience. “Finchie,” as she was known in the writers’ room, penned episodes on chondrosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer she developed in 2012 (and wrote about in essays for Elle, among others); about needing an abortion during cancer treatment (also outlined in a video for NowThis); about sexual assault, which she said happened to her on the Vampire Diaries set (another essay, for the Hollywood Reporter, during the height of #MeToo).Finch’s penchant for spinning personal trauma into television gold brought industry acclaim, social media…