Benita Alexander, a journalist and ex-fiancée of Paolo Macchiarini, is one of the major characters in Dr. Death season 2. The story of Benita, presented in the series, is based on the life of a real-life person of the same name and her journey of falling in love and getting her heart broken. Paolo Macchiarini not only betrayed his patients by giving them a false hope of survival, but he also betrayed Benita’s trust. Paolo, a divorced and dashing Italian physician, managed to impress Benita, but soon enough, she got the reality check on this man. Paolo’s constant lies and false promises started to annoy Benita, who eventually uncovered the actual background of this fraudster.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Did Benita Fall For Paolo?
Paolo and Benita first met each other through a documentary shoot on Paolo’s innovative invention of a stem cell trachea. During the time Paolo was treating Hannah Warren, Benita’s network aimed to document the entire treatment process. During this time, Benita, who had recently lost her ex-husband to a terminal disease, tried not to get attached to any other man. However, despite trying hard to restrain herself, Paolo’s charm and manipulative techniques made her fall into his trap. Benita fell for the man even harder when she suffered extreme stomach pain and was admitted to the hospital, where Paolo remained by her side. Paolo and Benita pursued a relationship in which Paolo gave her everything one could expect from a lover, but soon, Benita began to understand that Paolo was living two lives at once.
Paolo had multiple cell phones, which he used to call work phones, but Benita began to get skeptical. Since Hannah Warren’s death due to the plastic trachea transplantation, Benita had her suspicions about both Paolo and his methods, but she brought herself to believe that this man would eventually change the lives of these people and give them a new way to live.
How Did Benita Come To Know About Paolo?
Benita soon got engaged to Paolo after he made a grand gesture to propose to her; however, Paolo’s lies mounted up and soon became unconvincing when he promised her that the Pope in Italy would marry them in the Vatican church. Moreover, Paolo assured her that he had made advanced bookings for the entire wedding and reception venue, as well as the honeymoon suite in a lavish hotel. Benita first had her suspicions when she learned that the Pope would be out of town during their wedding, which further pushed her to dig deeper into the issue. Soon, she found out that the hotel bookings that Paolo had claimed to have made were all a bunch of lies. Heartbroken, Benita confronted Paolo, asking him for an explanation, and Paolo came up with many more lies that couldn’t convince Benita any longer.
Benita was dealing with her mental breakdown when she realized that her daughter was being affected by everything. Her daughter Lizzy had initially struggled to accept Paolo as someone her mother would be dating, but soon Paolo managed to win Lizzy’s heart. Now that Benita had learned everything about Paolo, she asked her daughter to stay away from the man, which further created misunderstandings between the mother-daughter duo. Benita couldn’t explain everything that went wrong with Paolo to her daughter, who was only a child, but Lizzy, for not getting a proper explanation, got mad at her mother.
What Did Benita Do To Stop Paolo?
Benita finally found a piece of evidence that could expose Paolo’s medical misconduct. In one of the videos, recorded by Benita, she found one containing Paolo talking to someone over the phone and acknowledging the fact that the tracheas weren’t working. Taking that video as proof, Benita approached every publisher to publish this story on Paolo to expose how he was playing an evil game with human lives, but no one agreed to publish it since one of her former colleagues, Percy, suggested Benita not use this medical scam story but tell her own life story to show the world how much of an evil and manipulative personality Paolo Macchiarini had. Initially reluctant, Benita decided to step forward with her own story. Initially, she believed that she had some journalistic responsibility in terms of storytelling, but she later realized that what Paolo had done with her life was also a scam, a betrayal, and a wrongdoing. So she came up with her story, which not only brought down Paolo’s public image but also motivated many other women to come up with their own stories of getting scammed and betrayed by the ones they loved. Benita was heartbroken, betrayed, and misunderstood, but she never let all of these come her way to move ahead. She was immensely criticized by a lot of people who judged her actions and her code of ethics as a journalist, but she was only a woman who fell in love with a man and was eventually betrayed.
Where Is Benita Now?
In the concluding scenes of Dr. Death season 2, we saw that, despite facing huge criticism, some women came to meet Benita to tell their stories. Benita inspired them to be brave and unapologetic for the choices they had made out of love. Now, Benita Alexander is still working as a journalist and thriving in her field with no one to stop her. She has successfully moved on from the baggage of her past relationship and continued living her life with her daughter. She was recently seen exposing Paolo Macchiarini in the 2023 documentary Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife, which got huge recognition. Now, Benita is still working on empowering women who have suffered betrayal and fraud by telling their stories. Benita has also opened her own production house, Berraca Productions, and continues to work passionately. Benita is an honest woman who might have made a mistake by trusting a person and his promises, but she was not a fool to stay in that relationship. She walked away with her pride and honor and managed to ruin Paolo’s public status by publishing an article on his evil doings. Benita became an inspiration for a lot of women who have suffered through the same incident but feared to talk about it. Through her journalistic work, Benita is still helping people, especially by giving these women a new purpose to live and tell their stories.
