Best-selling The Housemaid author Freida McFadden reveals true identity

Best-selling The Housemaid author Freida McFadden reveals true identity

A major publishing enigma has finally been resolved as the prolific author behind The Housemaid unveils her real name. Sara Cohen, who has written under the pseudonym Freida McFadden for years, has now shared her true identity with USA Today. The revelation marks the end of a long-standing secret that had intrigued readers and industry experts alike.

Cohen’s dual life as both a doctor and a bestselling thriller writer has been a source of fascination. Her medical career, specializing in brain disorders, spanned decades before she shifted focus to writing. The success of The Housemaid, published in 2022 and adapted into a film in 2024 starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, propelled her to second place in the UK’s best-selling authors of 2025, with 2.6 million copies sold. In the US, her work has seen six million print sales.

Cohen initially adopted the pen name to keep her personal and professional lives separate. Her first book, The Devil Wears Scrubs, was a fictionalized account of her experiences as a resident doctor, published in 2013. She chose “Freida” as a playful nod to a medical database, the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database. “It was a joke,” she said, explaining the origin of the name.

“I’m at a point in my career when I’m tired of this being a secret,” she explained. “I’m tired of people debating if I’m a real person or if I’m three men. I am a real person and I have a real identity and I don’t have anything to hide.”

Despite her literary fame, Cohen maintained her medical identity for years. She told the New York Times in 2024 that she feared her patients might feel uneasy about being treated by a bestselling thriller writer. “At work, I want to be a doctor,” she said. “A lot of my books have medical stuff in them, and I don’t want people saying, ‘Is this based on me?’ It feels unprofessional.”

The author’s decision to step away from her doctor job in 2023 allowed her to reveal her identity without disrupting her professional life. “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 told USA Today. “But I have stepped away from my job. I’m only working like once or twice a month.”

Cohen admitted to feeling overwhelmed by managing both roles. “I just realised I was completely overwhelmed from trying to do both,” she said. The pressure of maintaining two identities also grew as her popularity soared. In January 2025, she told the Times that a colleague recognized her in a Freida photo, effectively ending the secrecy. “The cat is out of the bag,” she remarked.

Though her real name is now public, Cohen still hopes fans will continue to know her by her pen name. “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,” she said. “Even though the name will be a surprise, nothing else will. I’ve always been genuine with my readers.”