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where-emanuela-pecchia-now
Pictured: Paolo Macchiarini, Benita Alexander
Netflix

If you’ve watched the three-episode documentary Bad Surgeon: Love Under the knife, you might be wondering where Emanuela Pecchia is now.

Pecchia’s husband Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was a renowned celebrity surgeon who, according to Netflix, was rumored to be Barack Obama and The Pope’s surgeon. He fell into notoriety after doing transplant operations involving plastic windpipes infused with stem cells. It was a groundbreaking due to regenerative medicine when it was launched. However, when patients started to die as a result of the surgery, many eyebrows were raised.

Shortly after Macchiarini implanted the windpipes in several of his patients, NBC reporter Benita Alexander was assigned to do a Meredith Viera special surrounding the doctor. Alexander and Macchiarini fell in love and were engaged without knowing that Macchiarini had a wife. Macchiarini planned to marry Alexander with The Pope officiating and with lavish guests like Barack Obama and Elton John. Things went south after Alexander was tipped off by a friend that the Pope was not even in the country and she started to question his practices. To her discovery, she found out that Macchiarini was still married and did not file for divorce.

“This was not some guy I picked up in a bar. This was a renowned, accomplished, established surgeon whom we had followed all over the world.” Alexander told Vanity Fair on why she didn’t question him. “The very prospect of him making all of this stuff up, even as I described it to friends as surreal and overwhelming, seemed too ridiculous to give it any credence. Why would he risk his reputation by doing that? What reason could he possibly have to lie to me, someone he obviously loved, in that manner?”

Alexander then messaged the Karolinska Institute where Macchiarini had been working about his professional practices and after thorough investigations, he was dismissed from the institute and later charged in court.

So what happened to Paolo Macchirini’s wife Emanuela Pechia now? Read more to find out.

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