Who is Benita Alexander-Jeune? Exploring her ill-fated relationship with Paolo Macchiarini amid the Netflix documentary
Explore the captivating life of Benita Alexander Jeune, a renowned figure in the entertainment industry, as she navigates relationships, resilience, and advocacy.
Benita Alexander Jeune, a celebrated figure in the entertainment industry, gained recognition for her contributions as a producer, narrator, writer, and director. Here's everything you need to know about Benita Alexander.
Who's Benita Alexander Jeune?
Born on April 21, 1966, in Huntington Woods, Michigan, she is now 66 years old. Benita started her career with local television stations and later ventured into national platforms like NBC, where she notably featured in A Leap of Faith. She gained prominence through her role on NBC's Dateline, earning two Emmy awards.
In her personal life, Benita has experienced multiple relationships. Currently married to Edson Jeune since October 2012, they celebrate over a decade of marital bliss. However, her previous marriage to John Noel ended in divorce in 2009 after six years together. Notably, her relationship with Dr. Paolo Macchiarini took center stage as they planned a wedding in 2015. Sadly, the romance collapsed due to Paolo's deception, leading to Benita's documentary, He Lied About Everything.
Benita's daughter, Jessina, born in 2003, is a testament to her first marriage. Presently, Benita resides in New York with her husband and daughter. Her resilience and advocacy for fraud survivors are reflected in her role as the CEO of Berraca Productions, which aims to empower women. As the Executive Producer of the true-crime series Crimes Gone Viral, airing on Investigation Discovery's second season, Benita continues to share her story through various media platforms, including appearances on ABC's documentary series The Con in 2020.
About Paolo Macchiarini's documentary: The con surgeon Benita has dated
Netflix's latest docuseries, Bad Surgeon: Love Under The Knife, delves into the shocking case of Paolo Macchiarini, a Swiss-Italian surgeon who gained international acclaim for pioneering plastic organs in the mid-2000s. However, a closer examination of his work revealed a troubling pattern: many patients he operated on later succumbed to their conditions, information concealed from the public and medical community.
The docuseries explores the scandalous details of Macchiarini's career, exposing him as a fraud who not only misled the medical community but also engaged in a deceptive relationship with an American TV producer while already married. The aftermath of the scandal and Macchiarini's current whereabouts form the crux of this Netflix documentary, unraveling a tale of medical malpractice and personal deceit.
How did Paolo Macchiarini's medical fraud come to light?
Macchiarini, once lauded for his groundbreaking surgery at Karolinska University Hospital in 2011, faced allegations of medical fraud when it was discovered that seven out of eight patients who underwent synthetic organ transplants between 2011 and 2014 had died, raising questions about the necessity of such procedures. In 2013, Karolinska Hospital suspended trachea transplants, leading to Macchiarini's contract not being renewed in 2014.
The surgeon faced further scrutiny in 2015, with an external review finding him guilty of research misconduct at the Karolinska Institute. The bombshell documentary Dokument inifrån revealed Macchiarini continuing questionable operations even after their effectiveness waned. His dismissal from Karolinska Institute in 2016 prompted a move to Kazan Federal University in Russia, where he worked until his 2017 termination. In 2018, The Lancet retracted two of Macchiarini's papers, bringing the total retractions to 11.
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