When Grey’s Anatomy returns to television, it will be in its 20th season. Many shows don’t come anywhere near that kind of run, but it’s likely that the ones that do have at least a little history of trouble behind the scenes, but to say such a thing for Grey’s might just be an understatement. While things have mostly seemed to be smooth sailing for quite some time, the show’s early days were hit with a number of backstage issues, some of which, famously, included former star Katherine Heigl. Now, she and Ellen Pompeo are set to reunite many years after the ‘cruel’ brouhaha she set off.
Why Are Katherine Heigl And Ellen Pompeo Reuniting?
If you’ve spent the past couple of decades paying attention to either celebrity news or that about any number of popular TV shows, then you probably know something about the less than peaceful way that the star (who has the Firefly Lane finale out now) left the series. Heigl got into a public feud with a co-star and seemed to shade Grey’s writers when withdrawing herself from the Emmys in 2008, along with other things, and was released from her contract by 2010. But, according to Variety, she and Pompeo (who led ABC’s magahit medical drama until her Season 19 farewell episode) will reunite on screen for the outlet’s annual Actors on Actors interview series.
These interviews simply feature two actors chatting with each other about their careers, and while the pairings don’t usually see two people who’ve worked together speak with one another, Season 18 will showcase the reunion between the two former Grey’s Anatomy stars, and others who are part of the early Emmy race this year.
Heigl left the show in Season 6, while, as noted, Pompeo famously stayed for the long haul. It seems that the two haven’t really spoken since her departure, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve had completely different opinions about everything to do with the series since, as both have solid reasons for hating the Izzie/George romance, and Pompeo recently supported something Heigl said in the lead-up to being released from the drama.
What Was The Grey’s Anatomy ‘Cruel’ Working Conditions Brouhaha?
The first few seasons of Grey’s should have been filled with nonstop joy for the cast, crew, and creatives who helped bring it to fans weekly, but Heigl’s problems with the inner workings of the hit started to become public just a couple of years after it debuted. In 2009, the year after she left the Emmy race, she appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and said that their first day back on set “was a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean” and noted that she was “going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them.”
This comment, along with the incidents that came before, led to Heigl being pegged as ungrateful and difficult, but it was in April 2022, during an episode of her Tell Me podcast, that Pompeo stuck up for the star’s comments on the hours they used to work. She said that Heigl had been “100 percent right” and would “be a complete hero” had she said that now, adding that “she was fucking ballsy for saying it” way back when.
I can only imagine that fans will be eager to see what the two stars discuss when they get together, and all when be revealed when the episodes begin airing on Variety’s YouTube channel on June 6.
