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Ellen Pompeo said the behind-the-scenes culture of "Gray's Anatomy", which is in its 14th year of release, was "toxic" for the first decade of the ABC series.
"The first 10 years, we had serious culture problems, very bad behavior, a really toxic work environment," explained the 49-year-old actress in a new interview with Variety.
When asked when there was a time when she wanted to leave the show, she replied, "There have been a lot of moments. It's funny: I never wanted to get off the bus that year. "
Pompeo, who has three children, said that once she became a mother, she understood that she had to support her family.
"It was no longer part of me," she said. "At 40, where will I get that kind of money? I have to take care of my children. "
A fair share of the drama in the series has been reported in the press over the years, including Isaiah Washington's abrupt exit in 2007 after using a homophobic insult as she struggled with Patrick Dempsey on the set and Katherine Heigl was retiring from the Emmy race feeling that her screenplay "deserved an Emmy nomination". Knight left in 2009, he told Entertainment Weekly. Its creator, Shonda Rhimes, experienced a "gradual breakdown of communication" (via CNN). Heigl left in 2010 and in 2014, Rhimes told the Hollywood Reporter she had a "no Heigls" on the set of his other show, "Scandal".
"My goal has become to be able to live an experience that I could be happy and proud of because we had so much upheaval for 10 years," said Pompeo. "My mission has become, it can not be fantastic for the public and a disaster behind the scenes. Shonda Rhimes and I decided to rewrite the end of this story. That's what kept me. "
She added that another of her missions was to prove to ABC that the cast did not need a male role after Dempsey left.
"I was on a double mission," she explained.
Pompeo openly declared that Dempsey was still making more money than his own, although he is the main character in the series. After years of struggling to get a higher salary, she negotiated a $ 10 million contract a year with the network.
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