In 2019, the film was nominated in the documentary category for the WIN Awards, Women's Image Network. Most importantly, though, we need to mention that Benita not only attended the former doctor/her former fiancs trial in Sweden, but she also covered it as a correspondent for season 3 of the Dr. Her film "He Lied About Everything," about her own personal story with a con man, aired on Investigation Discovery in 2018 and continues to air around the world. He responded wow,'" Benita claimed. "I put it all in a message. But Macchiarini showered her in flowers and jewelry. He was incredibly generous, you know, and so romantic and just so wonderful. After Cetir's surgery, doctors say she had to undergo an additional 191 surgeries for other complications. And that's where we met for the first time. And she was Daddy's Little Girl. "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. [00:17:24] Bob: He was there when she needed somebody. By what name was He Lied About Everything (2018) officially released in Canada in English? All of this was happening around the same time that Alexander was preparing to share her own story publicly for the first time in a Vanity Fair article. Macchiarini proposed to Benita Alexander on Christmas Day 2013, Alexander said. "The headline is that it started out as a beautiful love story and it ended up as a total nightmare," said Benita. related to AARP volunteering. They become engaged and plan a lavish dream wedding, to be attended by celebrities and officiated by none other than Pope Francis himself. If I had a checklist, he, he was everything I would want in a partner, everything you would want in a man. She said Macchiarini had told her that for their wedding, the Vatican had offered them the pope's summer residence in the Italian town of Castel Gandolfo. And I said, "Well how's that going to work, because we're both divorcees," or so I thought, and I'm not Catholic. 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. So he goes to the Vatican, ostensibly, to ask for help finding someone who will marry us, and he calls me after that meeting and says to me, tells me I need to sit down, um, he has good news, but I need to sit down. His work, if controversial, is also groundbreaking. [00:12:11] Benita: Not like that, you know, this was, this was one of those almost cliche movie moments where, you know, I don't even believe in love at first sight, but there was some sort of thing, something happened. 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. I don't know if I was nervous. Then, two years later, her father, whod married a neighbor, asked her to pack up her bags and leave for good. She said she later sent a lengthy text message to him, and received a single-word response: "Wow! Benita has spoken about her experience in numerous national and international TV and radio programs. [00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam. She couldn't eat. ET on ABC. Two-hour special that investigates the perfect engagement gone wrong between Emmy award-winning journalist, Benita Alexander, and the internationally acclaimed surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini Two-hour special that investigates the perfect engagement gone wrong between Emmy award-winning journalist, Benita Alexander, and the internationally acclaimed surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. [00:25:49] Bob: But, and this made him a fun interview, he doesn't mind debating his controversial techniques. Since her romance with Paolo imploded in 2015, the brunette beauty has continued working on documentaries and docuseries'. We had 300+ people coming from all over the world. It was going to be this four-day event in Rome, you know, with a red carpet event the night before the wedding, and a big brunch the day after the wedding, and people bought plane tickets, they bought fancy, you know, red carpet attire for this wedding. He also directed ABC News to a list of reforms the Institute was implementing in the wake of the scandal. Benita Alexander thought she had found her modern day Prince Charming. Benita Alexander and Paolo Macchiarini fall in love Alexander, an award-winning documentary TV producer, met Macchiarini in 2013 while working on a story about the surgeon's pioneering work. It said he'd be in South America and that the "trip had been planned for quite some time," Alexander said. What to tell her. He was speaking at a conference in Boston, and we went there to interview him, sort of ahead of Hannah coming to the US, about his work and about Hannah. Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients' own stem cells as trachea . She couldn't do anything that a normal child could do. But Benita's intuition overtook her and she hired a private investigator to look into the surreal wedding. I had to understand what happened and why. And, and then he would tell me the priest won't marry us, and this went on and on and on. again. 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. Benita was also the Co-Executive Producer and narrator for the 2016 TLC documentary, "Breaking the Silence," about sexual abuse. And each surprise was a bigger wow factor than the last one. [00:02:15] Bob: Still a young journalist, she found her way to the top of her profession very quickly. Uh, I think he actually appreciated being challenged to an extent. [00:40:15] Bob: With that dramatic entrance comes a dramatic exit too. Sought after worldwide, people believed Macchiarini would one day revolutionize the field of organ transplantation, journalist Bo Lindquist said. One name kept coming up over and over again, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. I didn't, you know, how do you, how do you not ask any questions, but all my friends convinced me, they said, "You know, Benita, you know he has amazing taste. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan. She found out exactly what hed lied about - and she said it was extensive. "I was angry as hell. After doing some digging, it transpired that Macchiarini was not the medical genius she thought he was. (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 . The two-part special details how Alexander, an award-winning investigative news producer, met Dr. Paolo Macchiarini while she was producing an NBC News special about the renowned surgeons work in the field of regenerative medicine. Documentary Two-hour special that investigates the perfect engagement gone wrong between Emmy award-winning journalist, Benita Alexander, and the internationally acclaimed surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. And Paolo never talks about his personal life. I couldn't fall apart because if he's lying to me like this, there's no way he's not lying in his medical and professional life.". [00:23:14] Bo Lindquist: And then we traveled to different places. I'm, you know, I like, I like information. And it's a beautiful building, and it just has this feeling about it, you know, as you, it's a very special feeling too. That's next week on The Perfect Scam. Um, which is just something I never thought I would do, you know. And one of those really, really tight embraces. [00:38:37] Bob: But even without asking any questions, one thing is clear, this wedding is going to be big. [00:42:58] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. "From that moment on, it felt like my head was spinning," Alexander said, "and it didn't stop spinning.". [00:33:44] Bob: And you, you had outfitted Broadway stars, famous people, but even for you this was a big deal. But at this point, they're just questions. A presence. The way he used stem cells with his plastic tracheas would eventually develop into something quite extraordinary where you could use stem cells to target organs or other areas of the body where the, where there was a medical problem. This is a true you must see it to believe it tale, with so many twists and turns, it will leave viewers stunned, asking only how this could have actually happened, Schleiff says. Yeah. A contact she had to the Clintons told her they'd never heard of Macchiarini. The 56-year-old actually has a podcast appropriately titled Benita & the Berracas for the same, and she continues to be an active advocate on the matter. 5. [00:31:42] Matthew Christopher: Yeah, I do, you know, I've done tons of celebrity stuff, tons of Broadway stuff. Cetir came to Macchiarini's attention after undergoing an elective procedure to correct a condition that caused excessive sweating. My then ex-husband, who I had moved to New York with and the father of our beautiful daughter, was dying of brain cancer. www.aarp.org/volunteer. You can also manage your communication preferences by updating your account at anytime. Maybe help me, help with the invitations 'cause I don't want to deal with that. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. 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. 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