Ellen Pompeo had ‘emotional outburst’ over Grey’s Anatomy scene she challenged

Ellen Pompeo revealed the one Grey’s Anatomy storyline she disagreed with so much that it triggered an emotional outburst.

Pompeo, who has starred on the medical drama for over 20 years, recently spoke to Variety about playing the same character for as long as she has, and how that’s resulted in her attempting to take a stance on specific scenes and storylines.

“I don’t always have a say in the choices the character makes. And writers will initially service a plot before they might stop to think, ‘Would the Meredith Grey that [Ellen] built — would she make that choice?’” she told the publication.

She noted: “I recently had this happen this past season where I was deeply against a choice that Meredith was making.”

The actor was referring to a situation when her character reported a fellow doctor (played by Lena Waithe) for lying about her wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis in order for her to receive a life-saving liver transplant.

Pompeo said she thought her character wouldn’t have turned in the doctor, but instead would have tried to help her find a loophole.

“My problem with that storyline was the Meredith Grey that I’ve created would have always been like, ‘I’m pissed that you lied, [but] let’s figure out how to game the system together to get you this f***ing liver. F*** the system. The system is broken,’” she said.

“Instead, Meredith chooses, for some reason, to be mad and snitch and tell … the board that she lied and that she shouldn’t get the liver — when Meredith has subverted the system for 20 years to do the right thing. She’s done free surgeries, whatever it takes, to actually heal and help people,” Pompeo recounted.

Despite Waithe trying to explain that Pompeo’s character likely made the decision because her love interest was a transplant surgeon, Pompeo was still “livid” with the decision and had an “emotional outburst.”

Pompeo discussed her dissatisfaction with her character’s decision a week after the actor revealed why she’ll never fully leave Grey’s Anatomy. She left the series as a full-time cast member in season 19, which aired in 2022.

Pompeo, however, still participates in episodes, doing voice overs, and said in an interview with El País that it would “make no sense” for her to quit the show “emotionally or financially.”

“The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024 – more than a billion times,” she told the publication, adding: “The companies that own the show and stream the show make a lot of money from our images and our voices and our faces.”

She added: “If I were to walk away completely, everybody gets to make money from my hard work for 20 years and I wouldn’t make any money.”

Pompeo noted: “To me, it doesn’t make any sense that everybody [else] gets to profit off of my hard work. And emotionally, the show means a lot to people. I want to have an attitude of gratitude toward the show.”