Grey’s Anatomy fans, rejoice: The show is officially coming back for a 19th season, effectively squashing rumors that it’s ending. That’s right: You don’t have to say goodbye to Meredith Grey and company just yet. 

“Grey’s Anatomy is a true phenomenon, beloved by audiences around the world,” said Dana Walden, chairman of entertainment for Walt Disney Television. “Whether they catch it live on ABC, or stream it on Hulu or globally on Disney+ or Star+, it’s clear that fans can’t get enough of Shonda Rhimes’s brilliant creation. We have enormous faith in Shonda, Krista Vernoff, Ellen Pompeo, and the entire creative team to unlock new, untold stories that will continue to focus on modern medicine, tackle the issues that shape the world around us, and resonate deeply with loyal fans for years to come.”

“I couldn’t be more excited that we get to keep telling the stories of Meredith, Bailey, Richard, and all of the other doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial for another season,” said Shonda Rhimes. “This is a true testament to Krista Vernoff, the cast, the crew, and all the writers who keep the audience on the edge of their seat week after week. And it would not be possible without the generations of incredible fans who have supported Grey’s Anatomy for so many years.”

“Grey’s Anatomy has a global impact that can’t be overstated,”  said executive producer and showrunner Krista Vernoff. “Grey’s touches, and sometimes changes, hearts and minds worldwide through the depth of connection people feel with these characters. I’m excited to work with our extraordinary writers to dream up where we go from here, and I’m always grateful to our partners at Disney and ABC for letting us tell bold stories with real impact.” 

We’ll update this post with more information about Grey’s Anatomy season 19 as it comes in. 

America’s favorite fictional surgeon is getting ready to hang up her scrubs. Ellen Pompeo recently revealed that she’s actively trying to find an end date for her hit series, Grey’s Anatomy. Though from the sound of it, her position is less “let’s get canceled” and more “let’s plan the ending so it’s satisfying for the fans.” Plus, maybe a teaspoon of “this thing has run its course.”

Pompeo’s actual words, given to Insider during a December interview, were, “I’ve been trying to focus on convincing everybody that it should end.” She added, “​I feel like I’m the super naive one who keeps saying, ‘But what’s the story going to be, what story are we going to tell?’ And everyone’s like, ‘Who cares, Ellen? It makes a gazillion dollars.'”

Though it’s definitely rare for a lead actor (and producer) of a network hit to openly advocate for their show to end, this interview lines up with Ellen Pompeo’s previous statements. 

When asked about renewing the show for season 18 back in February, Pompeo told CBS Sunday Morning that she was still weighing her options. “We honestly have not decided. We’re really trying to figure it out right now,” Pompeo said at the time, though she ultimately chose to continue for another season. “It’s: What story do we tell? To end a show this iconic, you know, how do we do it? I just want to make sure we do this character and this show and the fans—I want to make sure we do it right.”

Of course, it’s not time to say goodbye to the remaining Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital doctors just yet. We’d bet on a few more reunions will occur to give major storylines closure before the eventual series finale. In fact, Sara Ramirez, who portrayed Dr. Callie Torres on the medical drama for 11 seasons, recently threw their hat in the ring for a potential cameo. 

“Absolutely,” the actor recently told Glamour when asked if they would be open to returning. “I imagine that Callie is in New York. I’m not really sure what else is going on for Dr. Callie Torres, but I’m just as curious as the fans are. I think it would be really exciting to see what Dr. Callie Torres is doing these days. So yeah, I’m definitely open to it. I would love to see it.”

Still, all good things must come to an end, right? Wow, now we sound like a Meredith voiceover.

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The actor came out as nonbinary amid the pandemic—an aspect of their identity that they tell Glamour has been with them since before they were seven, though they “didn’t have the language or the supportive environment” to understand that part of themself. “In me is the capacity to be Girlish boy, Boyish girl, Boyish boy, Girlish girl, All, Neither,” they wrote on Instagram in August 2020.

In the premiere episode of And Just Like That, which dropped on December 9, the “queer, nonbinary, Mexican-Irish diva” described their version of public masturbation as wearing a baseball cap to Yankee Stadium, sipping a beer, and “watching the bros try to figure out what I am.” It seems we’ve come a long way from SATC’s season 3 episode “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl,” in which Carrie Bradshaw confidently describes bisexuality as “a layover on the way to gay town.” It doesn’t feel like a stretch to thank Sara Ramirez and Dr. Callie Torres for that.  

Below, Glamour spoke to Ramirez about And Just Like That, taking control, and whether or not they’d consider returning to Grey’s Anatomy.

You had a large role in shaping Dr. Callie Torres’s character arc and sexuality on Grey’s Anatomy. Can you tell me more about why that was important to you?

There’s this pressure when you’re in the public eye to disclose everything about yourself, and I felt immense pressure around coming out publicly, but I wasn’t ready. For me, this was kind of the safest way for me to represent. 

We enlisted GLAAD as we continued to unfold this storyline in a way that felt like it was honoring the tenderness and vulnerability around a character like Dr. Callie Torres, so a lot of her journey was not like mine. And I was okay with that. The thing I’m most proud of is that we weren’t really going for perfection, we were going for progress. Back in 2007 or 2008, that was progress. The context and the culture at that time was very, very different from how it is now. I’m just really glad that we touched on a nerve for people and inspired a lot of bisexual, pansexual, and gay people to understand their own sexual orientations through this particular person’s journey. 

Look at us now! Grey’s Anatomy has introduced its first nonbinary character and you’ve joined the new chapter of Sex and the City, which has had its fair share of problematic moments in the past, as its first nonbinary character. What made you choose to be a part of this legacy?

Back in the ’90s, when I was first starting out in the industry, I watched Sex in the City as a fan and dreamt about guest-starring on it. So when the series ended, I thought, “Well, there goes that dream.” As you can imagine, when Michael Patrick King offered me this role in a Zoom meeting last January, I was elated. I was so excited. 

Oh, yeah, I can imagine that too. His story of revenge hasn’t been fully written yet. That’s what’s interesting about the character. 

Jumping into some date night questions: Are you into rom-coms?

I do like rom-coms a lot. I have a soft spot for the movie It’s Complicated. I don’t know what happened to me. I was filming a movie in Montreal where I was playing a dark guy with dark material, and we were shooting a lot of nights. I would walk around on the weekends by myself, and I wandered into a multiplex and watched It’s Complicated, and Nancy Meyers completely transported me. 

I thought Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin were tremendous. I was so charmed by that movie, I think I went back and watched it a second time at the same theater. 

What dating or relationship rule do you think is bullshit?

Well, they’re two different things. I would say for dating, if it’s an early, casual thing, the rule about taking three days to text or call seems like nonsense to me. I was always very right on it, and I would text the next day. The fake casualness or trying to be cool didn’t seem so great to me.

If you’re in long-term relationship, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with spending one night alone every once in a while in a second bedroom. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think that can be kind of a good thing, if you need a little staycation. Nobody should get their feelings hurt.

You have a full day to binge-watch whatever you want. What do you pick?

You can go two different ways: You can go sort of highbrow television like Succession. I’m so consumed now with the Netflix model that you get sort of frustrated that Succession and these other shows only come out once a week. So I could do that in a big binge. Or I could do a Dateline, just continuously. Or 48 Hours. The “it’s always the husband” murder shows, I can binge no problem.

Seattle’s favorite redhead is back. We now have a first look at Kate Walsh’s return to Grey’s Anatomy, which is happening Thursday, October 14.

Dr. Richard Webber has his hands full with a new crop of interns, but lucky for him, Dr. Addison Montgomery is once again gracing the hospital staff with her skill. 

In this clip from the season 18 episode “Hotter Than Hell,” the HVAC system at the hospital has blown out mid-transplant. Dr. Montgomery, always cool under pressure, retorts that she can handle a little heat. When Dr. Webber reminds her of the speed needed to finish the transplant before the lack of air filtration causes infection, Dr. Montgomery responds, “Find me a set of hands as experienced at microvascular anastomoses of the abdomen. She pauses before adding, “Get me Meredith Grey.” Cue dramatic music!

Walsh first joined the show as Dr. Derek Shepherd’s estranged wife all the way back in the season one finale. So when she greets Dr. Webber’s interns saying, “I’m Dr. Addison Montgomery, and you must be the group that’s been screwing up the program,” it was a breath of fresh air for fans. It sent chills down our spine to the tune of “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband,” her iconic first line to Meredith Grey. 

Walsh ultimately left the show for her own spin-off, Private Practice, which ran from 2007 to 2013. She revealed her return to Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday, September 2, via social media. 

“Well, well, well, would you look who it is,” Walsh said in a video posted to the Grey’s social media accounts. “That’s right, my loves, Dr. Addison Montgomery is coming back to Grey-Sloan Memorial hospital, and I’m so excited to be home again, joining Shonda [Rhimes], Ellen [Pompeo], and the rest of the incredible cast.”

Patrick Dempsey may have returned to Grey’s Anatomy for season 17 of the hit medical drama, but not everyone is ready to let go of the past.

On September 16, The Hollywood Reporter released an excerpt of Lynette Rice’s oral history of the show’s most dramatic moments behind the scenes. Specifically, this chapter of How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy is devoted to the “H.R. problems” that reportedly led to Dempsey’s exit from the series—and Dr. Derek Shepherd’s devastating death. Rice spoke with costars and exec producers that were present at the time, and, reader, things are about to get messy.

According to the excerpt, executive producer James D. Parriott was specifically brought back on board to oversee Dempsey’s final days on set. “Shonda needed an O.G. to come in as sort of showrunner for 14 episodes,” Parriott said. “There were H.R. issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him. He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people. The network and studio came down and we had sessions with them. I think he was just done with the show. He didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working. He and Shonda were at each other’s throats.”

Producer Jeannine Renshaw spoke specifically about the tension between Dempsey and his costar Ellen Pompeo. “There were times where Ellen was frustrated with Patrick and she would get angry that he wasn’t working as much,” Renshaw told Rice. “She was very big on having things be fair. She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that ‘I’m here too late’ or ‘I’ve been here too long’ when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did. When I brought it up to Patrick, I would say, ‘Look around you. These people have been here since 6:30 a.m.’ He would go, ‘Oh, yeah.’”

Renshaw added, “He’s like a kid. He’s so high energy and would go, ‘What’s happening next?’ He literally goes out of his skin, sitting and waiting. He wants to be out driving his race car or doing something fun. He’s the kid in class who wants to go to recess.”

Ultimately, Renshaw says the “final straw” for creator Shonda Rhimes was witnessing Dempsey’s complaints on set. “Shonda had to say to the network, ‘If he doesn’t go, I go,’” Renshaw recalled. “Nobody wanted him to leave, because he was the show. Him and Ellen. Patrick is a sweetheart. It messes you up, this business.”

One longtime crew member who chose to remain anonymous told Rice that Dempsey was a “Lone Ranger” among “rogue actresses” (what does that even mean?). Read what he had to say in full and please, mind the misogyny:

Kate Walsh is returning to Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Addison Montgomery, the actor revealed on social media Thursday night, September 2. 

“Well, well, well, would you look who it is,” Walsh said in a video posted to the Grey’s social media accounts. “That’s right, my loves, Dr. Addison Montgomery is coming back to Grey-Sloan Memorial hospital, and I’m so excited to be home again, joining Shonda [Rhimes], Ellen [Pompeo], and the rest of the incredible cast.”

She also confirmed the news via a funny video on her own channels. Mimicking a popular TikTok trend, Walsh revealed a question she often gets asked is: “Will you ever come back to Grey’s Anatomy?” She had a simple answer—“yes”—then the video cut to her wearing medical scrubs and lip-synching an iconic Emma Roberts line from American Horror Story: “Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.” We did! We really did! 

Of course, Grey’s Anatomy fans know Walsh ultimately left the show for her own spin-off, Private Practice, which ran from 2007 to 2013. Prior to that, she was integral to the Meredith-McDreamy drama. Who can forget the end of Grey‘s season one, when Meredith found out Derek was married to another woman, that woman being Addison? 

Kate Walsh joins a list of several Grey’s Anatomy vets who have returned to the show for memorable cameos. Last season alone saw the reemergence of McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), McSteamy (Eric Dane), and George O’Malley (T.R. Knight). 

Fans are still holding out for a Dr. Cristina Yang return. Sadly, Sandra Oh says it’s just not in the cards for her. “In some ways, you do your work as a bubble and you let it go,” the actor told the Asian Enough podcast, per Us Weekly. “I left that show, my God, seven years ago almost. So in my mind, it’s gone. But for a lot of people, it’s still very much alive. And while I understand and I love it, I have moved on.”

Fame didn’t come naturally to Sandra Oh. 

The actor earned two Golden Globes for her performances on Grey’s Anatomy and Killing Eve, and now you can see her on Netflix’s collegiate comedy The Chair. Even though she’s starred in many iconic projects since Grey‘s, Oh is arguably most known (and beloved) for portraying the brilliant-but-messy Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC’s hit medical drama. And in a new interview with Willie Gerist for Sunday Today, she opened up about the mental health obstacles that came with the part. 

“To be perfectly honest, it was traumatic,” Oh said about the fame that resulted from her appearances in both Grey’s Anatomy in 2005 and the Oscar-winning movie Sideways a year prior.  “The circumstances you need to do your work, is with a lot of privacy. And so when one loses one’s anonymity, you have to build skills to still try and be real.” 

Oh says she went from not being able to go out and hiding in restaurants to becoming more adjusted to the fame and attention. When asked how she does it, Oh said, “Well, I have a good therapist.” 

Sandra Oh received five consecutive Emmy nominations for her work on Grey’s Anatomy, and she won a Golden Globe for her performance at the ceremony in 2006. 

In the interview, Oh also discussed Hollywood’s diversity evolution. “I can trace, I feel, how Hollywood has progressed. When I was on the show [Grey’s Anatomy] for 10 years, the show never addressed people’s ethnicity,” she said. But on Killing Eve, which she executive-produces, Oh says she’s able to “bring aspects of Eve’s cultural heritage” to the role. On The Chair, Oh plays Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim, who has a Korean name. “Now I get to play a character who has a Korean name,” Oh told Sunday Today. “And all the characters are going to call her that correctly.”

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.”

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Grey’s Anatomy may be on hiatus until season 18, but Ellen Pompeo is keeping those cast reunions coming.

On June 11, the actor behind Dr. Meredith Grey got dinner with an old friend: Eric Dane, who you may recognize from Euphoria and, oh yeah, Grey’s Anatomy. Pompeo posted about their outing on Instagram stories when they were greeted by a very familiar-looking waiter. 

“What would you like for dinner,” Justin Chambers asked before the group fell into a fit of laughter. Chambers, of course, also starred on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Alex Karev from season one through 16. 

Chambers abruptly announced his departure from the longtime medical drama in January 2020. “There’s no good time to say goodbye to a show and character that’s defined so much of my life for the past 15 years,” Chambers told Deadline. “For some time now, however, I have hoped to diversify my acting roles and career choices. And, as I turn 50 and am blessed with my remarkable, supportive wife and five wonderful children, now is that time.”

Despite the surprising news, Ellen Pompeo was nothing but supportive of her costar. On January 11, she reacted to the announcement by responding to a Vanity Fair tweet that read, “#GreysAnatomy is about to feel one of its biggest losses yet.”

“Truer words have never been spoken @VanityFair,” the actor wrote along with a broken heart emoji.

Alex’s fate wasn’t revealed until months later in an episode that didn’t include an appearance by Chambers. Through a series of letters, we learned that Karev did not actually leave to take care of his sick mother, as he had told Meredith and his wife, Jo (Camilla Luddington). Instead, he was actually reunited with his long-lost love and first wife, Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl). “I’m finally exactly where I should be. I never had that before,” Karev wrote.

Fans of the series…were less than impressed by this twist. “I’d honestly rather have Alex Karev die THAN have #GreysAnatomy ruin 16 seasons of character development to have him ghost everyone, and leave his wife for IZZY FUCKING STEVENS,” one of many tweeted at the time.

Allegedly, there was a reason Karev was kept alive. “The reason he wasn’t killed off is because Shonda Rhimes is leaving the door open for a return, in any capacity, if he wants to come back,” an alleged insider told Us Weekly.

Now that season 18 is officially a go, maybe we’ll still have a chance to see that happen. 

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