Bad Surgeon: Who is Paolo Macchiarinis wife Emanuela Pecchia, and where is she now?

Publish date: 2024-05-04

In 2013, Benita Alexander produced an NBC documentary on Paolo Macchiarini — a medical superstar credited with using plastic tracheas to treat throat conditions. While doing so, Alexander and Macchiarini grew close and fell in love. Macchiarini, however, was already married, and when Alexander found out, the surgeon’s complex web of lies fell apart.

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At that time, Macchiarini was hailed as a visionary, and there was no reason for Alexander, or anyone else, to think otherwise. The Swiss-Italian surgeon — the subject of the three-part, 2023 Netflix documentary true crime series Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife — belonged to the international medical elite, and his purported innovations, like plastic organs, were seen as groundbreaking innovations.

Based on that acclaim, Alexander’s NBC Macchiarini documentary, A Leap of Faith, was produced in 2013 and broadcast a year later, according to Esquire. By that point, Alexander and Macchiarini — who told Alexander he was divorced — were engaged to be married. The date was set for 2015, with Pope Francis set to officiate their marriage, according to Macchiarini.

But Macchiarini was already married with two children

But Macchiarini had not only lied about Pope Francis — he had also spun lies about other A-list celebrities attending the wedding and even hid his marital status. While carrying on his relationship with NBC producer Benita Alexander, the surgeon was still married to Emanuela Pecchia, mother of his two children, who lived in Barcelona. And these were not the only two women Macchiarini had misled.

Since 2010, Macchiarini and Ana Paula Bernardes — the mother of one of his transplant patients — had been in a relationship and even had a child together. But after Macchiarini’s operation on Bernardes’ son, her son died. And like Bernardes’ son, most of Macchiarini’s patients later died as well.

Because of that fact, Macchiarini’s claims about medical innovations like plastic organs were exposed as frauds, much like everything else, including his research, education, and life.

Pecchia’s status is unknown

According to The U.S. Sun, unconfirmed reports say Paolo Macchiarini and Emanuela Pecchia split and possibly divorced around 2016. Otherwise, little else is known about Pecchia’s life or Pecchia and Macchiarini’s two children.

Since Macchiarini’s personal and professional lies came crashing down, the once prominent surgeon has been embroiled in legal issues related to his false claims and fraudulent surgeries. In 2023, Reuters reported that Macchiarini was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for “gross assault” stemming from plastic trachea procedures. Macchiarini says he’s innocent and will appeal the ruling.

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