He further explained that Dempsey and series creator Shonda Rhimes, who ultimately issued the network a “him or me” ultimatum over the actor, had been “at each other’s throats.”īut the truth behind Dempsey’s departure wasn’t the only secret haunting the halls of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Parriott also says that Dempsey had been “terrorizing the set” and causing “HR issues” (though not ones that were “sexual in any way”). In Rice’s book, executive producer James D.
#Drama left right how to
After interviewing more than 80 current and former cast and crew members for her new book, How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, Rice solved the mystery.īehind the scenes, Dempsey reportedly began throwing “diva-like fits” over his work schedule, something that caused tension with Ellen Pompeo, who played his onscreen wife, Meredith Grey. She’d heard whispers about a larger scandal, but not enough to publish anything definitive - until now. “When I interviewed him back then, I knew I wasn’t hearing the whole story,” Rice tells Bustle. His abrupt departure, he professed, “just sort of unfolded in a very organic way.” Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd felt like “just another workday,” absent of tears or even a goodbye party. Dempsey told her that final scenes as Dr. Entertainment Weekly editor-at-large Lynette Rice was the only journalist to secure an exit interview, but even she didn’t feel she’d gotten answers. The 10-year Grey’s veteran was the show’s main heartthrob, and only halfway into a two-year contract extension. When Patrick Dempsey hung up his Grey’s Anatomy scrubs in 2015, no one knew what to think.