For 18 years, Grey's Anatomy has been the longest-running American prime-time medical drama series.
While it's been one hell of a watch on our TV screens, there's also been quite a bit of drama behind the scenes.
What's worse is the drama has been going on since the beginning of time basically (or 2005, when Grey's Anatomy started streaming).
Watch: Throwback to Katherine Heigl on Grey's Anatomy. Post continues below video.
Behind-the-scenes there's been fights, an acknowledged 'toxic culture' and a lot of firings (some warranted and some... not). Here's a complete timeline.
2006-2007.
Around this time is when Isaiah Washington and T. R. Knight's drama first came to light.
Washington yelled a homophobic slur about Knight (Dr George O'Malley) at Patrick Dempsey (McDreamy, but you knew that already) during a literal on-set fist fight.
Knight came out of the closet in a People magazine story published 10 days after the incident.
Washington apologised on October 26, but in January the issue resurfaced when he repeated the word, saying "I did not call T.R. a f*****. Never happened," at the 2007 Golden Globes.
"I apologise to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance," Washington said in a statement after the awards show. "By repeating the word Monday night, I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on Grey's Anatomy. I can neither defend nor explain my behaviour. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help."
On Twitter in November 2020, Washington said he should never have apologised.
The Washington Examiner reported Heigl was "irate" with Washington's comments in the Golden Globes press room and said: "He needs to just not speak in public. Period".
"T.R. is my best friend. I will throw down for that kid. I will beat you up. I will use every ounce of energy I have to take you down if you hurt his feelings," she was reported as saying at a Globes after-party.
In June 2007, ABC announced it would not be renewing Washington's contract and he would be dropped from the show.
In a statement reacting to his axing, Washington said he was "mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore".
A month later in July, Washington appeared on Larry King Live on CNN and said he never used the "F Word" in reference to Knight, but rather told Dempsey to stop treating him like a "F-word" during an argument "provoked" by Dempsey, who, he felt, was treating him like a "B-word", a "P-word", and the "F-word", which Washington said he meant to mean "somebody who is being weak".
Washington's drama got him fired - though he made a brief reappearance for Sandra Oh's (Cristina Yang) final storyline.
2008.
In 2008, Heigl pulled her name from Emmy contention despite winning an Emmy the season before.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Heigl explained her decision by throwing some major shade at the show's writers.
"I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination, and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organisation, I withdrew my name from contention," she said.
The show's writers and producers were reportedly (and understandably) pissed, but Rhimes said the reason Heigl's character was given less material than previous seasons was because she had requested a lighter schedule.
Though Izzie remained a core part of the show for season six, this Emmy debacle seemed to be the beginning of the end for Heigl's character.
2009.
In 2009, Knight announced he was leaving the show, frustrated by the lack of screen time his character George was receiving.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly he said he did not discuss this frustration, which saw George appear in just 48 minutes in the first nine episodes of season five, with Rhimes due to a "breakdown of communication". Instead, he just decided to leave.
"My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George]," he explained. "And with respect, I’m going to leave it at that."
Heigl continued to be a little shady throughout 2009 and publicly complained about the show during a talk show appearance.
Heigl complained about long filming days on The Late Show With David Letterman (even though, according to BuddyTV, she caused the long days because producers were trying to accommodate her media tour for rom-com The Ugly Truth).
"Our first day back was Wednesday and it was - I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them - a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean."
When Letterman asked how much longer she'd be on the show she replied: "Yeah, that's what I keep wondering".
2010.
Oh, it turns out Letterman's question was very timely because within months, Heigl was on the way out.
Rumours that the actress would leave Grey's Anatomy persisted throughout season six, partly because Heigl had not been shy about wanting to focus on her movie career.
Then, on March 11, 2010, Heigl reportedly did not show up for work... So she and Rhimes reached an agreement to immediately release her from her contract.
2012.
Two years later in 2012, show creator Shonda Rhimes was still not stoked with how things went down with Heigl.
"On some level, it stung," she told TV Guide of Heigl's exit, "and on some level, I was not surprised. When people show you who they are, believe them."
The same year, Eric Dane (Mark Sloan, AKA McSteamy, AKA the TV death I will never recover from) was written out of the show.
He made a small dig at the show in an interview with French news outlet Programme TV, saying - according to an English translation - that on Grey's he was "just a piece of meat".
2013.
In 2013, Pompeo told the New York Post she understood why Heigl wanted to leave, but the scandal surrounding her exit took its toll on the cast.
"Hurt feelings, combined with instant success and huge paychecks started things spinning out of control," she said.
"It was tough. You could understand why she wanted to go - when you're offered $12 million a movie and you're only 26. But [Heigl's] problem is that she should not have renewed her contract. She re-upped, took a big raise and then tried to get off the show."
Then Pompeo couldn't resist a dig at her former co-star: "And then her movie career did not take off."
Ouch.
2014.
Washington returned to Grey's Anatomy was Oh's final episode in season 10, neatly wrapping up her storyline. But that decision copped Rhimes a lot of criticism considering he was fired seven years earlier following homophobic slurs.
"My first decision and my first responsibility is to the story. I have to be the keeper of the story and make sure that we're telling the story we need to tell, regardless of whatever outside factors are involved or whatever history is involved," Rhimes told Entertainment Weekly at the time, defending her decision.
"I also want to just be clear that Isaiah is a person that we all love and have loved for a very long time. I feel like there have been a lot of people that have been like, 'How can you do this?' And I feel very strongly and fully believe in people's ability to grow and change and learn from their mistakes and when they know better, to do better.
"If people don't think that, over the course of seven years, it's possible for a human being to change, then there really is no future for the human race at all."
In October 2014, Rhimes made her infamous 'no Heigls' on set policy comment to The Hollywood Reporter.
"I don't put up with bullsh** or nasty people. I don't have time for it," she said.
A month later, Heigl responded during an appearance on Extra.
"I'm sorry that she feels that way, and I wish her nothing but greatness, and I have nothing negative to say about Shonda. I'm a big fan of her work," she said.
"I watch Scandal every week. I'm sorry she's left with such a crappy impression of me. I wish I could do something to change that. Maybe I will be able to someday."
2015.
In 2015 rumours were flying that Dempsey, AKA Dr Derek 'McDreamy' Shepherd was about to be fired.
His character was shipped off to D.C. for much of season 11 and ultimately uh... *spoiler alert* didn't make it beyond that season, despite being contracted for season 12.
On April 20, 2015 (just three days before the season 11 episode where Derek died was aired) a show source told Page Six it was down to 'diva' behaviour from the show lead.
"Patrick has been acting like a diva and has clashed with Shonda," they said. "She suspended him for a while, and the word on set is that he isn’t coming back full time."
"Given all the past problems with Katherine Heigl and Isaiah Washington, there is little tolerance on the show for troublesome talent."
In November of that year, Rhimes admitted during an appearance on The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore that she has killed off a character from one of her shows because didn't personally like the actor.
She never revealed who she was talking about, but the timing was... curious.
Dempsey responded a month later to say he thought Rhimes "loves being provocative and that's fine for who she is".
"That gets people talking about all the stuff that she's doing. She's promoting a book. She's promoting three shows. I think she knows how to deal with the media and what she needs to say to get the response that she's looking for," he told Entertainment Weekly.
In September 2021, an unauthorised book by author Lynette Rice, How To Save A Life: The Inside Story Of Grey’s Anatomy, published further details about Dempsey's departure.
In an excerpt published by the Hollywood Reporter, the book claimed he was "terrorising the set" before being written off the series.
"There were HR issues. It wasn't sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorising the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him," executive producer James D. Parriott, who was brought back to the series to oversee Dempsey's exit, recalled.
"He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people. The network and studio came down, and we had sessions with them. I think he was just done with the show. He didn't like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working. He and Shonda were at each other's throats."
Producer Jeannine Renshaw recalled how Pompeo would get frustrated with her co-star.
"She would get angry that he wasn't working as much. She was very big on having things be fair. She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that 'I'm here too late' or 'I've been here too long' when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did," Renshaw said.
"When I brought it up to Patrick, I would say, 'Look around you. These people have been here since 6.30 am'. He would go, 'Oh, yeah.' He would get it. It's just that actors tend to see things from their own perspective."
An unnamed cast member remembered how many of the show's cast would "go running to Shonda" and say 'hey, Patrick's doing this. Patrick's late for work. He's a nightmare.'
"He was just shut out in the cold. His behavior wasn't the greatest, but he had nowhere to go. He was so miserable. He had no one to talk to. When Sandra [Oh] left [in 2013], I remember him telling me, 'I should've left then, but I stayed on because they showed me all this money. They just were dumping money on me'," they said.
Dempsey himself is quoted in the book talking about this period.
"It's ten months, fifteen hours a day," he said.
"You never know your schedule, so your kid asks you, 'What are you doing on Monday?' And you go, 'I don’t know,' because I don't know my schedule. Doing that for eleven years is challenging. But you have to be grateful, because you’re well compensated, so you can’t really complain because you don’t really have a right," he said.
He said he would it hard to say no to his huge salary, and he worried about a career after McDreamy.
"It [was] hard to say no to that kind of money. How do you say no to that? It's remarkable to be a working actor, and then on top of that to be on a show that’s visible. And then on top of that to be on a phenomenal show that’s known around the world, and play a character who is beloved around the world," he said.
"It's very heady. It [was] a lot to process, and not wanting to let that go, because you never know whether you will work again and have success again."
Parriott said production had three different possible scenarios for Derek, depending on what happened with Dempsey.
One option was to keep the character in Washington D.C., separated from the rest of the cast. Another was to return him to Seattle and figure out what Derek and Meredith's relationship would look like. The last option was to kill off the character.
In the end, that was the only viable option.
"I think Shonda finally witnessed [the complaining] herself, and that was the final straw. Shonda had to say to the network, 'If he doesn’t go, I go.'"
2016.
Six years later, Heigl admitted she probably shouldn't have withdrawn herself from Emmy contention and shaded the writers in the process.
"I didn't feel good about my performance. There was a part of me that thought, because I had won the year before, that I needed juicy, dramatic, emotional material. And I just didn't have that that season," she said on The Howard Stern Show in April 2016.
"I was treating it a little black and white and taking it a little personally, but I think there were 12 series regulars on that show, and everybody deserved their juicy, dramatic, emotional season.
"I was really embarrassed. So, I went in to Shonda and said, 'I'm so sorry. That was not cool. I should not have said that.' And I shouldn't have said anything publicly," she continued. "But at the time, I didn't think anybody would notice ... I just quietly didn't submit. Then it became a story, and then I felt obligated to make my statement."
2018.
By this point, all Grey's was missing is some pay drama.
Enter: Meredith Grey.
Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter in January 2018 she had attempted to negotiate salaries alongside Dempsey during his time on the show, but he never responded.
"For me, Patrick leaving the show [in 2015] was a defining moment, deal-wise.
"They could always use him as leverage against me - 'We don't need you; we have Patrick' - which they did for years. I don't know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals.
"There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that. At one point, I asked for $5,000 more than him just on principle, because the show is Grey's Anatomy and I'm Meredith Grey. They wouldn't give it to me.
"And I could have walked away, so why didn't I? It's my show; I'm the number one. I'm sure I felt what a lot of these other actresses feel: Why should I walk away from a great part because of a guy? You feel conflicted but then you figure, 'I'm not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.'"
Later that year, Pompeo told Jada Pinkett Smith on Red Table Talk she and Dempsey hadn't spoken since his 2015 departure, though she had "no hard feelings toward him".
2019.
I think this story has well and truly demonstrated that Grey's Anatomy's set was a toxic environment. But in case there was any doubt, Pompeo actually said it explicitly in an interview with Empire's Taraji P. Henson for Variety.
She said there were times she considered leaving the series because of it all.
"The first 10 years we had serious culture issues, very bad behaviour, really toxic work environment," she explained.
"After Season 10, we had some big shifts in front of the camera, behind the camera. It became my goal to have an experience there that I could be happy and proud about, because we had so much turmoil for 10 years. My mission became, this can't be fantastic to the public and a disaster behind the scenes.
"Shonda Rhimes and I decided to rewrite the ending of this story. That's what’s kept me. Patrick Dempsey left the show in Season 11, and the studio and network believed the show could not go on without the male lead. So I had a mission to prove that it could. I was on a double mission."
2021.
In September 2021, Pompeo and Dempsey caught up in an episode of her podcast Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo.
In the podcast, Pompeo recalled some behind-the-scenes drama that took place after Dempsey's departure from the show, and featuring A-lister Denzel Washington.
In October 2015, Washington directed the season 12 episode 'The Sound of Silence'.
She began by praising Washington as "crazy charismatic" and said that Debbie Allen, who stars, executive produces and directs on Grey's, recruited him to keep Pompeo interested after Dempsey's exit.
"Debbie Allen was like, 'What can I do to keep Ellen interested? What can I do to keep Ellen here?' because after you left, I was like, 'Oh, why do I have to stay here? I've got to go now. Everyone's gone. Sandra's [Oh] gone, Patrick's gone. I've got to go too,'" she told Dempsey.
"And Debbie was like, 'No, no, no. You've got to stick around. I'm going to bring in a surprise for you,' and she would never tell me who it was. But she knew I was a huge fan."
In the episode, Meredith is attacked by a patient in an altered state of consciousness after an epileptic seizure. The patient apologises to Meredith, and it was this scene that led to the problem with Washington.
Pompeo said Meredith "was really hesitant and reluctant" to hear the patient's apology, so she decided to improvise.
"He apologised to me but he was doing it really softly, he made this choice to speak very softly. And [Meredith] was pissed that [she] had to sit there and listen to this apology, and he wasn't looking at [her] in the eye," she said.
"Again, we love actors who make choices, right? And I yelled at him, and I was like, 'Look at me when you apologise. Look at me.' And that wasn't in the dialogue, and Denzel went ham on my arse."
Pompeo reacted angrily to this.
"He was like, 'I'm the director. Don't you tell him what to do.' And I was like, 'Listen, motherf*****, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling?' Like, 'You barely know where the bathroom is.' And I have the utmost respect for him as an actor, as a director, as everything, but like, yo, we went at it one day."
But even still, Pompeo said it was a pleasure to work with someone of Washington's calibre.
"So we didn't get through it without a fight, but you know, that's actors for you — passionate and fiery — and that's where you get the magic, and that's where you get the good stuff.
"So it was an amazing experience, it really was," she concluded.
Listen to The Spill, Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast. Post continues after audio.
2023
After 19 seasons, Pompeo announced she was leaving Grey's Anatomy once and for all. She is currently the TV's highest-paid actress and makes US$550k (AU$816k) each episode.
According to a source, she wasn't the easiest person to work with.
"She has a colossal ego and was constantly throwing her weight around when it came to other people’s performances and storylines," the anonymous source told Radar Online.
"Some people called her a tyrant and they’re glad they won’t be seeing her around anymore."
The source said she became "overbearing" to work with over the course of 19 seasons with her.
"That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, from the production assistants all the way up to her co-stars. Truthfully, no one will miss her."
When appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show in February, Pompeo shared why she was ready to leave.
"I’m 53. My brain is like scrambled eggs," she said.
"I gotta do something new or I’m literally gonna turn into like, you can’t do the New York Times crossword puzzle every single day."
The actor continued, "I mean, 19 years, that’s more than people keep their kids in their house, like people keep their kids in their house until they’re 18 and then they send them off to college.
"So this is like me like going away to college."
Feature image: ABC.
This article was published on November 30, 2020 and has since been updated with new information.
Top Comments
I'm not over Mark, either. Him or Lexie. I think there was more to explore there, with their characters.