Why Ellen Pompeo's Dr. Meredith Grey Left Grey's Anatomy (Sort Of)

In 2022, before season 19 of Shonda Rhimes' long-running medical series "Grey's Anatomy" kicked off, Deadline broke the news that the show was losing its titular Grey. According to the outlet, Ellen Pompeo, who's been playing Dr. Meredith Grey on the small screen since 2005, had stepped back from her lead role and was, at the time, only set to appear in eight episodes of season 19 to ensure that she could work on other projects, including the then-untitled Hulu series which became 2025's "Good American Family." Back then, fans of "Grey's Anatomy" were given two important pieces of information regarding Pompeo's continued involvement: She'd keep narrating the series, and she would stay on as an executive producer.

Technically, Meredith Grey moves from Seattle to Boston in season 19, but Pompeo is definitely still, by any conceivable metric, on "Grey's Anatomy." She ended up appearing in 10 episodes of season 19 (including Meredith's "final" episode, "I'll Follow the Sun"), five episodes of season 20 (which was abbreviated due to the 2023 Hollywood strikes), and seven episodes in season 21. So, why did Pompeo exit after all that time, and why did she keep making appearances at all?

We'll come back to that second question, but first, during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for "Good American Family," Pompeo — who, I should say, rarely minces words whenever she speaks publicity — was blunt about why she stuck around on the medical drama for such a long time. "On 'Grey's,' you really only get an opportunity to be nominated for things in your first few seasons, and so that time had clearly passed," she explained. "I didn't crave that kind of recognition. I craved the sort of financial and job security situation more that I did critical accolades — that's why I stayed on the show." 

Pompeo then spoke about her future as an actor, seemingly hoping that she could earn some accolades in different projects. "Had I been [chasing] critical acclaim, I wouldn't have stayed on 'Grey's' for so long," she continued. "So, it wasn't always the most important thing to me, but now that I'm doing something new, it would definitely, probably help me in this next chapter of my story — moving on from 'Grey's,' doing other roles." 

To be absolutely fair here, Pompeo has been turning in solid-to-excellent performances as Meredith Grey for two decades and was routinely snubbed for Emmys when her (also great) co-stars Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson got multiple nods — and Katherine Heigl, who departed in season 6, even won one for her work in season 2. Beyond that, though, here's how the show "writes" Meredith off ... and why Pompeo will never fully cut the connective tissue between her and "Grey's Anatomy."

Even if you haven't watched even a minute of "Grey's Anatomy," it's not hard to ascertain that Ellen Pompeo's Meredith Grey plays the biggest role in the series. We first meet her on her inaugural day as a surgical intern, where she's reunited with a one-night-stand she met at a bar only to learn that he's her boss, Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), the hospital's new chief of neurosurgery. Despite some frankly enormous and highly dramatic hurdles, the two ultimately get married and adopt a daughter (Zola) and have two children after that (Bailey and Ellis). However, in the show's 11th season, Derek is grievously injured in a car accident and ends up dying of a brain bleed. (Pompeo, apparently, didn't hate the fact that the series wrote off her in-universe husband.)

Meredith, the consummate survivor, carries on as best as she can. In some ways, she deals with her newfound grief by diving headfirst into her work, and thanks to that (and a groundbreaking abdominal wall transplant), she wins the prestigious Harper Avery Award for surgical innovation, following in the footsteps of her famous surgeon mother Dr. Ellis Grey (Kate Burton). After a brief relationship with cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Nathan Riggs (Martin Henderson), Meredith dates intern Dr. Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti, whose character is killed in season 17) and, as of "Grey's Anatomy" season 21, comfortably settles down with fellow general surgeon Dr. Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman).

The whole reason for Meredith's exit, though, is that she realizes that Zola, played as a young woman by Aniela Gumbs, is suffering from severe anxiety — and after Meredith brings Zola to visit Boston to look at private schools, Zola expresses interest in attending one geared towards STEM. This is the canonical, in-universe reason for Meredith and her family, including Nick, to decamp to Boston and technically leave the show ... so, how does the series justify keeping her around anyway?

Okay, so why does Meredith Grey keep flying, within the narrative of "Grey's Anatomy," between Seattle and Boston? Well, canonically, she's working on a research project intended to cure Alzheimer's, the degenerative cognitive disease that led to the death of her mother. In real life, however, Ellen Pompeo has been quite candid about why she didn't leave "Grey's Anatomy" completely. As she told El País, she made the show what it is today and still wants to reap the benefits.

"That would make no sense, emotionally or financially," Pompeo said of leaving the series entirely. "The show was streamed more than a billion times in 2024. More than a billion times." She continued:

"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."

This is, to be honest, pretty fair from Pompeo's perspective, and as she said, stepping away partially and not fully has given her a better life overall. "I've been doing it for 20 years, so it was time to step away," Pompeo revealed. "I have three children and I love spending time with them and I love being involved in their lives. I'm very lucky to be able to get to work sometimes and take time off. I have a nice balance in my life."

You can watch Pompeo's performance as Meredith Grey on "Grey's Anatomy" on Netflix or Hulu; it's streaming on both platforms.