Over a month ago, “Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo’s name popped up in several headlines after the actress revealed shocking news that she and legendary actor Denzel Washington “went at it” on the set of the show. Shonda Rhimes, creator of “Grey’s Anatomy,” is now putting in her two cents on the five-year-old incident in a new interview with Variety.
In relation to Pompeo and Washington’s verbal quarrel, Rhymes was asked if she felt “relief” that she did not have to deal with problems on the set of the ABC series. She responded, “I don’t think of it that way. The relief and the luxury that I have is that I don’t really pay attention to Twitter or Instagram — or articles. So I feel like, whatever happens, happens. But I also feel like Ellen’s going to be Ellen.”
Pompeo, who is the star of this show that’s been around for 18 seasons, said that her and Washington’s issues began when she improvised some of her lines for a scene. “I was like, ‘Look at me when you apologize. Look at me,’ ” she described to her former co-star Patrick Dempsey in an episode of her podcast “Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo.”
Apparently, Washington, who was guest directing the show at the time, was not a fan of her going off script tbrough ad-lib, and as Pompeo described it he “went ham on my ass. He was like, ‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’ ” However, the “Art Heist” actress said she did not back down from Washington and instead she defended herself.
“I was like, ‘Listen, m———-r, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling? Like, you barely know where the bathroom is’ ,” she recounted. But today Pompeo said she has the “utmost respect for him as an actor and director.”
Toward the end, she said, ‘We didn’t get through it without a fight, but 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.”
Washington himself has yet to respond to Pompeo.
