!['Would Make No Sense [to Leave]': Ellen Pompeo Has a Good Reason for Sticking With Grey's Anatomy](/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/18ce1471cde319ee76aca43e259e8aab.jpg)
Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith Grey herself on Grey’s Anatomy, but her character only appears sporadically on the show these days. Some viewers have been wondering if Pompeo might quit altogether.
But she’s not going to, and for one simple reason: The paycheck is too good. The actress explained her situation to El País magazine recently. «[Leaving the show] would make no sense, emotionally or financially,» she told the outlet. «The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024. More than a billion times.» And that helped make her one of the highest-paid women on television.
Pompeo went on, “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. 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 knows what she’s talking about, because she had to fight hard for her paycheck. At the beginning of Grey’s Anatomy she was paid less than co-star Patrick Dempsey, something she saw as sexist. «I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get. I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got. I was salty that they didn’t value me as much as they valued him and they never will,» she said on an episode of Call Her Daddy, adding that Dempsey was on his 13th TV pilot by that point and «only a man can have 13 failed TV pilots and their quote still keeps going up.» In the end, she got what she asked for, and then some.
Ellen Pompeo Wants A Career Outside Meredith Grey
The Grey’s Anatomy star took a step back from acting to focus on her children, but now she’s keen to get back in the game. That’s why she took the role of Kristine Barnett in Good American Family, a show that depicts the remarkable true-life story of Natalia Grace, a young girl with dwarfism who may not be all that she seems.
It was Pompeo’s first big role since reducing her screentime on Grey’s Anatomy. “People have been watching me in the same role for 20 years. I’ve been playing the same role for 20 years,» she said to El País. «I had no reason to believe that I could do anything else. I hadn’t tested myself in 20 years and I can’t expect my audience to believe me as anything else. If I’m going to ask them to watch me as a new character, then I’d better deliver on all fronts. It was at the same time thrilling and terrifying.” Critics approved of her performance as Kristine, and Good American Family was highly watched.
Meanwhile, Grey’s Anatomy shows no signs of going away, and Pompeo isn’t going to be short of job offers as she goes forward.
