Ellen Pompeo Fought to Convince Everyone Grey's Anatomy Should End
But her appeals fell on deaf ears.
Grey's Anatomy has been on the air for 18 years, 19 seasons, and 413 episodes. During its impressive run, it has broken numerous records, won countless awards, kickstarted many careers, and amassed millions of devoted fans. But today, the majority of viewers see it as an example of a series that should have ended years ago, before it became a shadow of its former self.
And as it turns out, the show's star, Ellen Pompeo, has long felt the same way.
The actress who plays the main character, Meredith Grey, told Insider back in 2021 that she tried to convince Grey's Anatomy creators and ABC big bosses to end the medical drama. But it was a tough sell because of how profitable the show was.
'I feel like I'm the super naive one who keeps saying, “But what's the story going to be, what story are we going to tell?” And everyone's like, “Who cares, Ellen? It makes a gazillion dollars,”' Pompeo shared.
Apparently, without any proper response to her appeals, Pompeo decided it was time to at least end her own participation in the show and began to step back in 2020, when her character spent most of the season in a hospital bed with a severe case of COVID-19. And this year, with Season 19, she officially quit the series as a regular in order to pursue her other projects and businesses.
Although Grey's Anatomy brought Pompeo worldwide fame and made her the highest-paid actress on television, nearly two decades on the show is a long time for anyone, and fans understood and accepted the actress' wish to move on.
What they don't understand is why the series is still running. Many are sure it should have ended when Patrick Dempsey's Derek Shepherd was killed off in 2015, or when creator and original showrunner Shonda Rhimes left the show in 2017.
And if not then, many fans feel that the time to end Grey's Anatomy is now, when both the lead actress and post-Rhimes showrunner Krista Vernoff are leaving. But it looks like ABC is adamant about continuing the series as long as it brings in big bucks, whether fans and cast like it or not.