Ellen Pompeo looks strained following Grey's Anatomy salary backlash and channeling 'dark places' revelation
Ellen Pompeo looked somewhat strained as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Monday.
The actress, 55, who received enormous backlash from fans after negotiating a higher salary, showed off her slender form in a light brown sweater and matching pants.
The Grey's Anatomy star pulled her long blonde hair back into a low ponytail and wore natural looking makeup.
She wore gray sneakers, but added a pop of color with a navy blue Hermes Birkin bag as she stepped out of her black SUV in the Larchmont Village area.
While running her errands, the People's Choice Award winner was seen carrying a brown pastry bag with a delicious treat inside.
In a recent episode with Magic FM, the actress, who has starred as Dr. Meredith Grey's Anatomy since 2005, spoke about a groundbreaking and risky episode that took place in 2011.
In the episode, instead of saying their lines, the cast sang them.
'It's so funny because I thought surely that was the end of us. We're doctors singing about car crashes? That's a wrap on us.'
'I'm so pleased it wasn't,' said the host. 'Shows you how much I know,' quipped Pompeo.
The actress admitted that after two decades of playing the character, fans sometimes confuse her with her TV persona.
'I'm so grateful for the show. I'm so grateful for the fans and I love them, but to be honest, when people do call me Meredith, I do get a little annoyed,' she admitted.
'I love that you love the show, but please call me by my right name.'
The veteran star, who received backlash when she complained that Patrick Dempsey was paid more than her when Grey's Anatomy first debuted, put an end to any claims she would be leaving the show in the near future and that she was in it for the long haul.
'That would make no sense, emotionally or financially,' she stated to El Pais.
'The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024. More than a billion times. The companies that own the show and stream the show make a lot of money from our images and our voices and our 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,' she explained.
'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.'
Pompeo has stepped back from being the main character to being a recurring character, which allowed her to tackle a different project in Hulu's new limited series, Good American Family.
The fact-based drama focuses on a family who adopt a girl they believe has dwarfism, but as the years go by, they come to believe their daughter is not who she says she is, and may be older than they were lead to believe.
'So much of acting is not only just emotion, but it's physicality,' she told People.
'The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024,' she said. '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,' she explained
Pompeo has stepped back from being the main character on Grey's to being a recurring character, which allowed her to tackle a different project in Hulu's new limited series, Good American Family
To accomplish her work on Good American Family and Grey's Anatomy, Pompeo told People that, 'It's hard, but you have to go to dark places in your mind and make yourself uncomfortable'
'You have to tie the two things together,' she explained. 'And you have to work yourself up, you have to get yourself in a state to be able to deliver certain lines and a truthful performance.'
She continued: 'And you have to work yourself up, you have to get yourself in a state to be able to deliver certain lines and a truthful performance. It's hard, but you have to go to dark places in your mind and make yourself uncomfortable.'
Pompeo was an executive producer on the drama, which debuted on March 19.
The series finale is scheduled to stream on Hulu, Hulu on DisneyPlus domestically and on DisneyPlus internationally on April 30.
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