Free online workshop! I want to focus on work. But the biopsies showed the cells were dead and that there was actually fungi growing on the plastic, he said. "As furious as it makes me what he did [to me and] my daughter, the thought that this is a man who has people's lives in his hands. He had told her, as personal surgeon to the Pope, the leader of the Catholic church wanted to marry the couple, she explained. He is Italian. And each surprise was a bigger wow factor than the last one. I'll take care of it." "The woman in Barcelona was not his wife. Give it to me. And she was Daddy's Little Girl. Which sounds a bit absurd, however, he is an Italian surgeon. He soon proposed, only for her to realize her fianc was a complete liar around a year later. You know he; he was sort of like Mr. Macchiarini and Benita quickly started planning an extravagant wedding, she said. In the meantime, please feel free Eventually, she died. I was just kind of like, um, 'cause Benita's so awesome and like, you know she was totally in love with him. Um, you know, they come in and I'd say, "Welcome to your closet." News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. Benita Alexander is an award-winning investigative television producer, showrunner, correspondent, director, writer and narrator who has worked on a wide variety of film and TV programs. "We had to clear her throat basically every four to six hours, sort of 24 hours, seven days a week," said Oscar Simonson, a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked at the Karolinska Institute and its affiliated hospital at the time. The famous surgeon, a miracle worker who gives hope to hopeless patients, who's rewriting the rules of medicine. He never did that with me, but I, I've, I have seen him really being quite, quite unpleasant with um, PhDs and people who were sort of subordinate. Together, they'd spend long weekends traveling to different countries, like Mexico, Russia and Greece. The documentary includes never-before-seen footage and photos and shows Alexanders search for the truth after such a shocking betrayal of the heart. Benita Alexanders personal life story was part of the documentary film, He Lied About Everything. You know the, the invitations talked about needing a password, a secret password to get into the wedding, and you couldn't get in unless you had the invitation with you. But everything else, I'm planning everything, and you can't ask me any questions.". "He didnt know Pope Francis, he wasnt his personal doctor.". His six papers on the transplant surgery were retracted. A successful TV journalist, the single mother-of-one was interviewing him for a report on cutting-edge medicine. Alexander didn't initially believe him, but she said Macchiarini told her that the pope wanted to push forward his progressive agenda for the church. We had, we had a very good relationship still when it came to our daughter and sharing custody and you know, both of us were very focused on our daughter. Quack, quack, quack. And that presence was really something, it was really something. And when I looked at the email, there was an article, and it was an article about the fact that the Pope was not even going to be in Rome on July 11th, 2015, he was going to be in South America. And so we, we thought, you know, this is a perfect case to focus a story around, and so we started doing Hannah's story. Alexander hired a private investigator to investigate all the secrets and lies about Macchiarini. Benita met and married a fellow reporter, John Noel, and moved with him to New York, where they welcomed their daughter in 2003. After doing her own research, Alexander found that Pope Francis had just married 20 couples and began to believe it was possible after all. I still remember my first day walking in there too, especially with, with all the art, the art deco and everything. He's also never spoken publicly about his relationship with Alexander. And there are special considerations now that the wedding is going to be at the Vatican, so she asks the store how she can get in touch with the designer? Um, (laugh) I was uh, in my 40s. Macchiarini took Alexander to several romantic getaways in Europe. Her daughter has thus been the only constant in her life. [00:36:55] Bob: Benita, the TV producer, is very used to managing all the details of a big event. [00:06:37] Bob: Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, he's doing surgeries that most doctors could only dream about. Death." Reality struck Alexander's fantasy romance eight weeks before she was supposed to marry Macchiarini in 2015, when she received an email from a colleague with the subject line saying, "The Pope.". So I just found him very, I don't want to say intimidating, because intimidating's not the word. Famous For Being an American actress and producer. You know, it was awful for her family. But Macchiarini showered her in flowers and jewelry. And that's where we met for the first time. [00:12:57] Bob: And there is another reason Benita must focus on her work at the time. The Love Con: Directed by Star Price. And this trip had been planned for a very long time. [00:36:00] Matthew Christopher: On Valentine's Day, I met him. But when it comes to the wedding, Paolo takes the lead. And he, so his reputation sort of proceeds him, but when he walked in to where we were sitting that day, he, when he walked in, he looked right at me, and our eyes met, and I've never in my life had something like this happen to me before, but I, I felt like a silly, little schoolgirl. Um, I almost actually passed out. It started with Andrea Bocelli was going to be singing in the church, because Paolo told me that his mother and Bocellis mother were friends. I found him very um, hmm, he had a presence about him. By the time Alexander discovered these things about Macchiarini, she said she'd spent over $50,000 on wedding preparations and quit her job. Hosted by Benita Alexander. I was there for about 20 minutes, and I, I tossed these flowers into the water, and I was, you know, very emotional in saying goodbye to John. Gerdin also said Macchiarini had failed to obtain ethical permits to perform the transplants, which he said amounted to experimentation on human subjects. You know, "What did he do this time? Kind of like being in a fairy tale, you know. And a very, very good listener and was giving me very wise, sage advice, you know, about all these questions; what to tell her, how to tell her, and I was sort of soaking it all up, and I was very touched by the fact that this man seemed so incredibly altruistic. [00:39:32] Bob: And as the day approaches, Benita gets to try on that custom-made wedding dress. And it was so fun to work with, with all of them, you know, anybody that, and they have private appointments that wanted to come in. again. She did what she had to but never let it take over her life, which in turn helped her graduate magna cum laude from Wayne State University in 1987. You know, no, how do we take viewers through a two-hour journey of this little girl coming, you know, halfway across the world to get this radical surgery, and then she doesn't make it? And that was the moment I just thought, oh, I'm, I'm falling for this man, you know, and I just, I just sort of melted into his arms. Benita Alexander thought she had found her modern day Prince Charming. I had tried, at one point I pushed him away, and we didn't see each other for about three months. She said she called the castle where all the guests were supposed to be staying and asked them about the reservation, which they didn't have. And after he left, I said to my parents, that's what I'm going to do when I grow up. I mean it was, I felt butterflies, you know. In the course of that operation, the surgeons had nicked her trachea. In 2015, Alexander sent emails to the Karolinska Institute expressing concerns about the acclaimed surgeon. Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. She said one question was heavy on her mind: "Why did you do this to me, why would you do that to anybody? And everybody was sort of envious in a, in a sweet way, you know, everybody would say to me, "I want what you have." In 2013, the successful documentary producer met world-renowned, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini while working on a project for a major network. We had a long time together on the flight from Korea to Illinois. A post shared by Benita Alexander (@loveconned). En Espanol The couple divorced in 2009. Come on. I thought he was playing some kind of silly game with me. And he came to visit us in Australia, and I was just, I was only 8, but I was ab--, absolutely infatuated with what he was doing and asked him all these questions. After she called Macchiarini, furious about what she'd read, she began to wonder what else he might have lied about. And I literally, I was really like, what? They make it for you in the lab, right. "I have some really high-powered clients," she said he told her. [00:25:22] Bob: And while Paolo loves to talk about his work, he isn't always charming. She is currently the Executive Producer/Showrunner of the true crime series "Crimes Gone Viral," which airs on Investigation Discovery and is in its second season. And so now his son, who I think was about 8 or 9 at the time, was in Brazil with her family, and he was engaged in this very difficult and complicated fight to try and get his son back, and such a loving father. And the stem cells were supposed to magically integrate, and he was fixing people. I literally felt like I was floating on clouds. Macchiarini.". The couple had the wedding planned for July 2015. "He was a top doctor, he spoke six or seven languages. It said he'd be in South America and that the "trip had been planned for quite some time," Alexander said. And so we were looking into this field, and we found this doctor. (Pasadena, Calif.) - This Valentine's Day, Investigation Discovery (ID) presents a love story gone wrong with HE LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING, the astonishing true tale of the love affair between award-winning investigative news producer Benita Alexander, and the brilliant, world-renowned surgeon Paolo Macchiarini.What started as a picture-perfect dream relationship between two people at the . Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? They had already decided to marry in Italy, where Macchiarini wanted a Catholic wedding despite rules against remarriages. It was beyond Benita's wildest dreams - Macchiarini reportedly told her he invited Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Elton John, and that the Pope himself would oversee the ceremony. A love story gone bad for Benita Alexander, an award-winning documentary television producer and Paolo Macchiarini, an internationally renowned surgeon. They live in the same area outside Florence. [00:32:33] Matthew Christopher: (laugh) She said to me as I um, she said to me, "Well, Matthew, (or team)" she goes, "Well, I'm getting married by the Pope." [00:06:46] Benita: And he was, as I said, called the super surgeon, and he was the pioneer in this field. And so I was sort of, by becoming involved with him and by falling in love with him, I was breaking this cardinal rule in journalism that you don't get involved with a subject of your story, and even though when we did fall in love, it was, we were at the end of the production of the story, we kept it quiet because of that. Macchiarini had reported that after his first patient underwent the procedure, a healthy trachea was beginning to develop, Lindquist said. [00:04:33] Bob: But it also sounds like you get pretty, your stories are very emotional, and you get pretty involved in your subjects, right. [00:31:35] Matthew Christopher: Yeah, it is a special process. I didn't know what to think. And so it was kind of the perfect case for us to focus our story around. View our online Press Pack. She started her career at a local news station before moving on to work at NBC in New York. Alexander was assigned to work on the documentary about Paolo Macchiarini who has considered a pioneer in organ transplant. View this post on Instagram She is honestly proud of how far she has come (as she should be), and its evident shell never let anything or anyone take this journey/narrative away from her. She won a slew of honors for her work with the greatest in television reporting, including two Emmys. "The outcry was such that the Karolinska Institute had to do something," said Ritchie. After relocating to New York, Benita worked for NBC and was featured in NBC's documentary "A Leap of Faith" in 2013. [00:31:07] Bob: But what is a couture wedding gown designer? Um, and so he had, we were coming back into the room after dinner one night, and I was kind of teasing him. I did not think that by pulling that thread, we would completely undo the sweater.". I had to understand what happened and why. I mean I'm going to achieve this; you know what I mean? "It said that he had a normal functioning airway," Corbascio said. It was killing me, and but I was also so in love with him. It was eight months later when they became properly engaged after Macchiarini presented her with a $100K ring. But before the wedding can happen, Benita makes a . In 2019, the film was nominated in the documentary category for the WIN Awards, Women's Image Network. In October, 2020, her story was the premiere episode of ABC's primetime series, "The Con," hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. TV producer's romance with star surgeon begins against better judgment: Part 1Benita Alexander met Paolo Macchiarini while covering his pioneering work for a. Benita Alexander thought she had found her modern day Prince Charming. [00:35:38] Bob: I mean it sounds like that could cost an infinity if you wanted it to. In 2015, she served as a co-executive producer on Breaking the Silence, which featured DWTS pro Cheryl Burke, and Counting On alums Jessa Seewald and Jill Duggar Dillard. It basically was, we've been asked to do this, and by virtue of being my fianc, because I'm this famous doctor, I feel that this is something we should do. Exploring the troubling tales of people manipulated by claims and promises that proved too good to be true, it reveals how the perpetrator fooled their victims and made them pay the price for their misplaced trust both emotionally and financially. [00:17:24] Bob: He was there when she needed somebody. Macchiarini claims the synthetic trachea didn't shorten Tuulik's life or the lives of any of his other patients, or cause their deaths. Cetir came to Macchiarini's attention after undergoing an elective procedure to correct a condition that caused excessive sweating. He proposed to Alexander on Christmas in 2013 and she said yes. [00:12:41] Bob: And you went forward with that weekend pushing the feeling aside, right? The latter refers to his misconduct that led to the deaths of several patients. Their guest list, Alexander said, included Elton John, the Beckhams, the Obamas, the Clintons and Russell Crowe. And so they got FDA approval for Paolo to do the surgery in Illinois, and they got him a special medical license to do the surgery in Illinois. Yeah. "He said he was having trouble finding a priest to marry us," she said. I don't want you to do anything except find your dresses and just, all you have to do is show up and look beautiful. I didn't even, I, I, I stopped in hesitation. I love some pressure, let's go for it. And he actually said his barber in uh the south of Russia, he, he managed to find this excellent, excellent barber in Kazan there where he performed his Russian experiments, brilliant guy. Anyone that knows anything about private schools in New York knows how hard that is. Are you new to podcasts? Macchiarini convinced Alexander that the Obamas, the Clintons, the Beckhams, Elton John, and John Legend were few of many personalities to attend their wedding. [00:02:26] Bob: I remember walking into 30 Rock thinking it was the equivalent of walking into Yankee Stadium or something. On your mark, get set, go. Nobody, except my closest friends and family, knew about the Pope because we weren't allowed to talk about it, but they knew that was a big VIP wedding. What do they discover? [00:10:23] Benita: Yeah, the thing about this was, I am, and I'm, I'm very serious when I work. You know we went on this incredibly romantic trip to Greece, and he was always videotaping me. Countries, like Mexico, Russia and Greece decided to marry us, '' Ritchie... My parents, that 's what I 'm going to achieve this ; know! 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