The Housemaid author Freida McFadden has been hiding her true identity for years, but apparently her famous wig wasn’t meant to be part of her disguise.
When the bestselling writer, 45, recently revealed her real name, she also explained that the reason she hides her hair is not quite as interesting as many of her fans believed.
“I have no idea how to style my hair,” she explained in an interview with USA Today published on Wednesday, April 8. “It’s so much more boring than anything that happens in my books.”
McFadden rose to fame after her thriller The Housemaid, released in 2022, became an enormous success, selling millions of copies and inspiring a 2025 film adaptation starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. Her identity, however, remained a mystery, with some fans theorizing that she was actually a man or a conglomerate of several writers working together under one pseudonym.
In her USA Today interview, McFadden finally revealed the truth, which is not nearly as scandalous as readers of her twist-filled books had hoped. Her real name is Sara Cohen, and she began using a pseudonym to protect her other career as a doctor who treats brain disorders.
“My whole goal was to keep it a secret until I was [ready to] step back from my doctor job, so it wouldn’t be like everyone I work with suddenly knew and it compromised my ability to do my job,” she explained, noting that she stopped working full-time as a doctor in late 2023. “I’m only working, like, once or twice a month.”
Some of her coworkers eventually did find out that she was moonlighting as a bestselling author, but they were “really nice about it” and agreed to keep her true name a secret. A few were also fans of her work without realizing she had written some of their favorite books.
As for why she decided to stop working as a doctor, she explained, “I just realized I was completely overwhelmed from trying to do both.”
While McFadden is perhaps best known now for The Housemaid and its sequels, some of her other books were directly inspired by her medical training. In 2013’s The Devil Wears Scrubs, for example, main character Jane McGill is an intern coping with her first year of residency while also dealing with a sadistic senior resident.
“Even though I haven’t told my real name until now, I feel like I have shared the real me all along and everything I’ve told them has been the truth,” McFadden told USA Today. “Even though the name will be a surprise, nothing else will. I’ve always been genuine with my readers.”
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