Ellen Pompeo’s Brutally Honest Reaction to Why She Hasn’t Quit Grey’s Anatomy Makes So Much Sense

Ellen Pompeo's brutal honesty about sticking to Grey's Anatomy may have sparked controversy but it makes perfect sense. Here's why!

The post Ellen Pompeo’s Brutally Honest Reaction to Why She Hasn’t Quit Grey’s Anatomy Makes So Much Sense appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Yes, we know. Dozens of you out there always say the same thing when faced with anything remotely Grey’s Anatomy-related.

And to answer your often sardonic question: Yes, it’s still on.

The series got picked up for its 22nd season, which means it’ll continue trudging along and making history as it does. From the sounds of things, Ellen Pompeo will still have her name attached to it.

Recently, she did an interview about her latest project, Good American Family.

In the EL PAÍS interview, she opens up about why she still sticks around at Grey’s Anatomy, even when some of us still feel like, in many ways, the series can’t continue to truly thrive in its new era if it still fixates on Meredith Grey.

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Her response to that inquiry was brutally honest, in a way that many either agreed with and understood her wholeheartedly or were put off by her candor.

But as we’ve learned over the years, Ellen Pompeo is nothing if not candid.

That would make no sense, emotionally or financially. The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024. More than a billion times. The companies that own and stream the show make a lot of money from our images, voices, and faces. 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. 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.

Considering all that Grey’s Anatomy has achieved and Ellen herself because of it, that answer makes perfect sense.

If we haven’t learned anything from the 2024 Writers/Actors Strikes, the life and industry that we tend to glamorize from the outside looking in is far from that.

There’s not much glamour about being a working actor if you haven’t achieved a certain amount of fame, and job security is often scarce.

Not only that, but we’ve learned about how little actors make in comparison to their work, the inequity they often face, especially factoring in things like gender, race, and age, and how quickly the industry can pull the rug from under someone’s feet.

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There’s not nearly enough agency in the business, and many of those who have found a way to secure some had a long road ahead of them before they did.

Ellen Pompeo is one of them. It’s easy to get wrapped up in how she’s one of the most recognizable faces on broadcast or eventually secured herself as one of the highest-paid actresses on primetime television.

But we also must consider how long it took her to reach that point. In the earlier days, Pompeo was virtually unknown.

Her ability to lead a series despite that was rare in and of itself, and it’s certainly something that wouldn’t happen today, where projects stack as many well-known faces into a series as possible or at least one big-name one to greenlight something.

It took a while before Pompeo was getting the same type of pay as her male costar, Patrick Dempsey, and she had to truly advocate for herself at a time when the same industry would’ve gaslit her into believing she was coming across as ungrateful.

In an industry that’s fickle as all hell and supremely unpredictable, Ellen Pompeo’s achievement and maintenance of the type of success she has via Grey’s Anatomy is virtually unprecedented.

Think about it: so few series make it to double-digit seasons, let alone have over two decades under their belts. Offhand, outside of Grey’s Anatomy, that leaves NCIS, Law & Order, and Law & Order: SVU clocking in at a whopping 26 seasons.

The latter shares a similar quality to Grey’s Anatomy, being a female-led series that achieved such a feat.

When you have job security, you don’t take it for granted. Grey’s Anatomy remains a successful juggernaut series. It still secures impressive ratings and views across live viewing and streaming combined.

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You can find it out on two streaming networks, and it’s been on long enough for syndication a million times over. It’s a cultural phenomenon that still finds new audiences to this day, a series that essentially spans generations in viewership as Gen Z and younger discover it and partake.

As long as the series continues to make money and pleases the fans, it’ll continue, so given that consistency, Pompeo’s desire to stay on and continue capitalizing on her two decades of work is perfectly reasonable.

It’s just as much her baby as Shonda Rhimes and Disney.

The strikes exposed how easily and often creators are pushed out of their work or exploited. Considering all that, who can fault this woman for wanting to ride a successful train until the wheels fall off or it runs off the tracks?

She’s more than earned the right to do so.

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There’s also the matter of this series taking all of her “best” years as an actress.

While blessedly, the industry has widened its scope in embracing actresses beyond a certain age, it doesn’t make it any less challenging to secure specific projects and opportunities when there’s such a narrow view of what type of women should be at the forefront of anything anymore.

It’s not unlike how her costar, Chandra Wilson, who has also starred in the full 21 seasons, sticks by the project.

Job security and the ability to open up new doors to other things, like direction and production, make these choices a no-brainer.

So, hey, collect your bag, Ms. Pompeo!

Over to you, Grey’s Fanatics. Did you agree with what Pompeo said? Sound off below!

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The post Ellen Pompeo’s Brutally Honest Reaction to Why She Hasn’t Quit Grey’s Anatomy Makes So Much Sense appeared first on TV Fanatic.