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Speaker 1: All right, are you with me on this? We all

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Speaker 1: stretch the truth from time to time, but for some

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Speaker 1: it gets out of control, and that includes big shots

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Speaker 1: in politics, business, and Hollywood. The unbelievable tale of a

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Speaker 1: hot shot writer for Grey's Anatomy who lied about her

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Speaker 1: cancer battle and her brother's suicide is what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. A compulsive liar gets nailed. Next on

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Speaker 1: the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Sure, most of

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Speaker 1: us tell little lies occasionally. Studies say we do it

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Speaker 1: maybe twice a day, and if you deny it, you're

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Speaker 1: probably lying. Usually we do it to look good, or

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Speaker 1: protect someone's feelings, or because we're scared. But there are

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Speaker 1: people who really go off the deep end. Some are

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Speaker 1: surprisingly big names, like a guy we all know about,

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Speaker 1: Congressman George Santos, who lied about Oh, I don't know everything.

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Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Holmes, who conned investors out of billions for Thoroughnose,

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Speaker 1: her startup company that produced a device she said could

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Speaker 1: diagnose almost any illness it's just a drop of blood,

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Speaker 1: only it couldn't. And she's in jail. But what about

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Finch, who is she? Well, she was a really

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Speaker 1: respected Hollywood producer writer. She wrote for True Blood in

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Speaker 1: Vampire Diaries. She was successful, but she wanted more. She

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Speaker 1: wanted to be famous, and she was willing to tell

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Speaker 1: horrific lies to get there. So she writes this really

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Speaker 1: compelling article for l magazine about herself being a TV

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Speaker 1: writer while undergoing treatment for bone cancer. Hollywood loves her story,

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Speaker 1: and Grey's Anatomy hires her. She becomes a superstar writer

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Speaker 1: for the show. Now, she starts using her cancer battle

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Speaker 1: in storylines for Grays, but it sort of becomes like

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Speaker 1: an emotional Ponzi scheme. The more she shares, the more

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Speaker 1: empathy she gets, and the more storylines she has for scripts,

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Speaker 1: so she invents even more. She claims she'd lost a

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Speaker 1: kidney and had to abort a baby due to her treatment.

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Speaker 1: She then started wearing makeup to make herself look sick.

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Speaker 1: She shaved her head and even complained of losing her

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Speaker 1: sense of smell all due to chemo. She wore a

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Speaker 1: fake catheter port and pretended to vomit in public bathrooms

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Speaker 1: so people thought she was sick. Friends took her on

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Speaker 1: vacations and put together lavish monthly care packages for her.

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Speaker 1: Grey's Anatomy celebrates her, even putting her on the show

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Speaker 1: playing a nurse. The show's creator, Shonda Rhymes, has her

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Speaker 1: write about her life and her medical issues on shondaland

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Speaker 1: dot com, but she needs even more so. She shares

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Speaker 1: other personal traumas, claiming that her brother had sexually abused

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Speaker 1: her when they were kids and that he'd later committed

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Speaker 1: suicide because of it. She said she had a friend

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Speaker 1: who was killed in the twenty eighteen mass shooting at

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Speaker 1: the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and that

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Speaker 1: the FBI had allowed her into the crime scene to

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Speaker 1: remove her friend's remains. At one point, Elizabeth throws herself

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Speaker 1: a huge fortieth birthday party. She rents a warehouse in

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Speaker 1: la with lavish catering for hundreds of guests. She says

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Speaker 1: the party is also celebrating the remission of her life

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Speaker 1: threatening cancer. She told the crowd that her doctors from

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Speaker 1: the Mayo Clinic were there but didn't want to be identified.

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Speaker 1: But after ten years of lies, it started to unravel

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Speaker 1: when she got married to a woman who for several

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Speaker 1: years pushed her to come clean. When Elizabeth didn't, her

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Speaker 1: wife finally went public with the truth and eventually left,

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Speaker 1: taking her kids with her. At Grey's anatomy, Elizabeth was

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Speaker 1: put on administrative leave, investigated by Disney's HR, and later

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Speaker 1: she lost her job. She finally admitted she never had

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Speaker 1: any kind of care answer and that her brother is

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Speaker 1: actually a doctor and he is alive and well living

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Speaker 1: in Florida. She says it was just a lie that

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Speaker 1: got bigger and bigger, and she calls her lis a

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Speaker 1: maladaptive coping mechanism, which I guess sounds better than compulsive liar,

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Speaker 1: says Elizabeth. Some people drink to hide or forget things.

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Speaker 1: Drug addicts try to alter their reality. Some people cut themselves.

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Speaker 1: I lie. She says she just wanted to be seen

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Speaker 1: and heard, and that it all kicked in after a

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Speaker 1: knee injury. At the time, friends were helpful and sympathetic,

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Speaker 1: but when the knee healed, she really missed the attention

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Speaker 1: and she invented the cancer story to get it back.

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Speaker 1: It's been rough for her since it all went public.

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Speaker 1: She's not allowed to see the kids. She says. Family

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Speaker 1: and friends called me a monster and a fraud and

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Speaker 1: said that all I'll ever be known for and soon

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Speaker 1: more truth would come out about me. What does she

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Speaker 1: did now? She says she fills her days with long

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Speaker 1: walks and a lot of therapy. A friend says, her

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Speaker 1: lies were so detailed and so deep. She built her

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Speaker 1: career around her cancer and made millions off of it,

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Speaker 1: and she didn't care who she dragged into it. Part

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Speaker 1: of the problem is we live in a world where

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Speaker 1: a good liar gets rewarded right. A politician gets elected,

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Speaker 1: a business person gets money like crypto king Sam bankman

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Speaker 1: Fried or Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, who can forget him?

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Speaker 1: Both of those guys cost billions for investors. And finally,

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood, a well crafted lie about your own illness

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Speaker 1: and pain gets you money, empathy, and a chance to

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Speaker 1: be seen in the spotlight, at least for a little while.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

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Speaker 1: executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're out

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Speaker 1: with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening to

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Speaker 1: the Backstory. The pieces of history you didn't know you

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Speaker 1: needed to know