Ellen Pompeo reveals why she hates ‘Grey’s Anatomy’s most famous line

Ellen Pompeo has set the record straight on one of her most famous lines in Grey’s Anatomy.

In the latest episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, the 55-year-old actress reacted to how her character Meredith Grey begged Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) to leave his wife in a 2005 episode of the ABC medical show.

Pompeo shared, “There was a lot of stuff that I didn’t wanna do at the time. I didn’t wanna say, ‘Pick me, choose me, love me.’”

However, the Daredevil star revealed that Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes knew the line would connect with the audience, saying, “she knew that was gonna pop.”

“I was like, ‘Why would I do this? Why would I beg, why would I?’ And you know, you have to just suck it up and do it. And it ended up being, you know, the biggest thing ever, the most iconic things ever. So, I’m not always the best judge of, you know, what’s gonna [work],” she recalled.

Notably, this is not the first time Ellen Pompeo talked about not liking the line. In 2023, she spoke with Katherine Heigl for Variety’s Actors on Actors series and said, “I fought that speech so hard.”

“That’s another really interesting thing about life. Some things that I was so against — I was like ‘Why would I beg a man? I can’t beg a man on TV, this is so embarrassing.’ And then it turns out to be, like, one of the most successful scenes,” the Good American Family said.

“In the scene, I’m crying, but I’m really crying because I have to beg a man on television,” Ellen Pompeo stated.