Ellen Pompeo Says Her ‘Make Out’ Scenes With Patrick Dempsey Were Hard for Her Husband to Watch

Ellen Pompeo’s chemistry with Patrick Dempsey was so strong on Grey’s Anatomy that even her husband struggled to distinguish fiction from reality.

The Grey’s star opened up about her husband Chris Ivery’s struggles with her more…intimate…scenes with Dempsey at the beginning of the series, which premiered back in 2005 and is still going strong. “Poor guy had no idea what he was getting into,” she said on the Ladies First with Laura Brown podcast, per People. 

“I remember in the beginning it was really hard for him,” Pompeo said. “He was like, ‘This is not what I signed up for. You go to work and make out with that. I like Patrick and everything, he’s a good dude, but like really?'”

According to Good Housekeeping, Ellen Pompeo met the music producer at a grocery store in Los Angeles back in 2003. They were married by 2007 and share three children together: Stella, Sienna, and Eli.

Meanwhile, Dr. Meredith Grey (Pompeo) and Dr. Derek Shepherd (Dempsey) were deeply in love on the hit medical drama until McDreamy’s untimely death in season 11. Thankfully for fans, Dempsey returned for a few surprise cameos in the latest season while Meredith was in a coma with COVID-19. 

“Patrick and I have this chemistry where I think even from when we first met, for some reason, it just felt like we’ve known each other for a hundred years, and it’s just the same feeling,” Pompeo told Deadline in November. “It’s like riding a bike, we just have a chemistry and a dynamic that’s always served us well, and I think we have a genuine affection for each other.”

Dempsey also opened up about his emotional return to Grey’s Anatomy after six long years. “We all cried at the beginning and we hugged each other,” Patrick Dempsey told Variety in April. 

“The intention was to really give people some hope because they are such an iconic couple,” Dempsey added. “We’ve lost so many people this year, the thought that we’d have angels hovering around us taking care of us is a good message to send out in such a bleak world that we’re living in. So for all of us, it was a beautiful ending to this story. I’m so grateful that I did it and happy that the fans really loved it.”