'Grey's Anatomy' star Isaiah Washington said Ellen Pompeo was secretly paid $5 million 'to not tell the world how toxic and nasty Patrick Dempsey really was'
Oct 29, 2021
Ellen Pompeo, Patrick Dempsey, and Isaiah Washington.
Isaiah Washington said the
"Grey's Anatomy" star Ellen Pompeo accepted "$5 million dollars under the table" to keep quiet and "not tell the world how toxic and nasty Patrick Dempsey really was" on set.
During an interview on
Tavis Smiley's radio show on October 21, Washington said Dempsey "was not a nice guy from day one." He also referred to Dempsey as "a total tyrant" who had a reputation for being "pilot poison," meaning an actor who represents a liability to getting a show picked up for a series.
Washington said
Pompeo took "hush money" from unnamed parties around the time that the #MeToo movement was first making headlines before she signed a
$20 million contract to continue on "Grey's Anatomy" and become the highest-paid woman on television.
Dempsey and Washington film one of Washington's final episodes on "Grey's Anatomy."
The #MeToo hashtag went viral in 2017, largely inspired by reports about the now convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein from
The New York Times and
The New Yorker. Many women in Hollywood made sexual-abuse allegations and described gender-specific disparities.
Pompeo signed her $20 million contract with ABC "in late 2017," according to her
January 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"
And you want to run around here like you are the keeper of all feminine women and the feminist movement," Washington said, referring to Pompeo.
The "P-Valley" actor said he never felt supported on the set of the medical drama because he "was never wanted there."
"Every single day, I was a problem that was being reminded, 'You're No. 4 on the call sheet,'" he said.
Pompeo.
Washington said that around the time he exited "Grey's Anatomy," his own behavior on set was being used to cover up Dempsey's.
Washington was at the center of one of the first controversies on the set of ABC's long-running medical drama when multiple
witnesses said he used a homophobic slur to refer to his costar T.R. Knight during a fight with Dempsey. Washington issued an apology for his actions to
People in 2006 and was fired from the show the following year.
Reps for Pompeo and Dempsey didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
