Since 2005, Ellen Pompeo was the heart of her hit ABC show, Grey’s Anatomy. Playing the determined yet vulnerable Meredith Grey, she won over the viewers season after season, and became a TV star fans just couldn’t live without. But, as it turns out, while Pompeo was the lead of the show, she wasn’t the highest-paid actor on the show for the longest time.
In a new interview on Call Her Daddy, the actress revealed that Patrick Dempsey, aka Meredith’s love interest Derek Shepherd on the show, made more than her up until 2018.
“To be completely fair, the television game was so different then. He had done 13 pilots before me,” she said, per Variety, explaining this his experience put him at a higher level. Before joining Grey’s, Pompeo had had minor roles in movies and TV shows like Friends and Catch Me If You Can while Dempsey had already some starring roles in movies like Can’t Buy Me Love, Some Girls and Loverboy.
“Nothing personal to him, just in general, only a man can have 13 failed TV pilots and their quote keeps going up, right?” Pompeo reflected. “But in all fairness, his quote was what it was. He was a bigger star than I was at that point. No one knew who I was. Everybody knew who he was, so he did deserve that money. I’m not saying he didn’t deserve that money. It’s just, being that I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get.”
In other words, while Pompeo knew Dempsey started the show with more value, she knew her worth once the show took off.
“I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got,” she clarified. “I was salty that they didn’t value me as much as they valued him, and they never will.”
Then, in 2018, she negotiated a $20 million-a-season deal and became the highest-paid actress in a primetime drama.
“Being raised in a mafia culture, I always want to pay respect to the people that deserve respect,” Pompeo said.
To prepare for the negotiation meetings, her team researched data about the show and traced her impact over the years. “I see exactly how much Grey’s Anatomy makes for ABC/Disney. I get to see the number. It’s my face, it’s my voice. I’ve done so much work promoting the show all over the world for the past 20 years,” she said. “I am the Disney princess of that franchise.”
“I have the data to back [it] up, I know the show generated this much money I definitely deserve a percentage of that,” she said. “I advocate for women always fighting for themselves because most likely they are getting undervalued compared to what they’re offering men.”
“Being a woman, I guess I’m conditioned to make sure that I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes and I’m being polite,” Pompeo said.
Of course, Pompeo reached out to creator Shonda Rhimes before going in guns blazing at the negotiations. Luckily, Rhimes was supported. “I asked Shonda first — she doesn’t really have much to do with that stuff, it’s business affairs and whatever — but I said to her, ‘I’m going to go in and ask for this much, are you cool with that?’” Pompeo remembered. “Just because I don’t want to be disrespectful to her, I don’t want to come off crazy and I want to let her know what moves I’m making because I do respect her. I am grateful to her.”
Pompeo ended up leaving the show and becoming a series regular in 2023. Dempsey, on the other hand, left in 2015 when his character Derek passed away in a car crash. No matter how their storylines panned out, we’re applauding Pompeo for fighting for what’s right. Meredith Grey is a legend, and she knew it.
Before you go, click here to see the best Netflix shows you should be watching right now.
