In 2022, before season 19 of Shonda Rhimes’ long-running medical series “Grey’s Anatomy” kicked off, Deadline broke the news that the show was losing its titular Grey. According to the outlet, Ellen Pompeo, who’s been playing Dr. Meredith Grey on the small screen since 2005, had stepped back from her lead role and was, at the time, only set to appear in eight episodes of season 19 to ensure that she could work on other projects, including the then-untitled Hulu series which became 2025’s “Good American Family.” Back then, fans of “Grey’s Anatomy” were given two important pieces of information regarding Pompeo’s continued involvement: She’d keep narrating the series, and she would stay on as an executive producer.
Technically, Meredith Grey moves from Seattle to Boston in season 19, but Pompeo is definitely still, by any conceivable metric, on “Grey’s Anatomy.” She ended up appearing in 10 episodes of season 19 (including Meredith’s “final” episode, “I’ll Follow the Sun”), five episodes of season 20 (which was abbreviated due to the 2023 Hollywood strikes), and seven episodes in season 21. So, why did Pompeo exit after all that time, and why did she keep making appearances at all?
We’ll come back to that second question, but first, during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for “Good American Family,” Pompeo — who, I should say, rarely minces words whenever she speaks publicity — was blunt about why she stuck around on the medical drama for such a long time. “On ‘Grey’s,’ you really only get an opportunity to be nominated for things in your first few seasons, and so that time had clearly passed,” she explained. “I didn’t crave that kind of recognition. I craved the sort of financial and job security situation more that I did critical accolades — that’s why I stayed on the show.”
Pompeo then spoke about her future as an actor, seemingly hoping that she could earn some accolades in different projects. “Had I been [chasing] critical acclaim, I wouldn’t have stayed on ‘Grey’s’ for so long,” she continued. “So, it wasn’t always the most important thing to me, but now that I’m doing something new, it would definitely, probably help me in this next chapter of my story — moving on from ‘Grey’s,’ doing other roles.”
To be absolutely fair here, Pompeo has been turning in solid-to-excellent performances as Meredith Grey for two decades and was routinely snubbed for Emmys when her (also great) co-stars Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson got multiple nods — and Katherine Heigl, who departed in season 6, even won one for her work in season 2. Beyond that, though, here’s how the show “writes” Meredith off … and why Pompeo will never fully cut the connective tissue between her and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
