Katherine Heigl is opening up about the backlash she received after speaking out about her experience on Grey’s Anatomy.
During a conversation with her former costar Ellen Pompeo for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, the 44-year-old actress said she was “so naive” when it came to addressing her concerns about the ABC medical drama.
Following her 2007 Emmy win for her role as Dr. Izzie Stevens, Heigl withdrew her name from contention for a nomination the next year, saying she “did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant” a nod. That incident, compounded with several other comments and complaints Heigl had previously voiced, earned the star the dreaded label of “difficult.”
“I got on my soapbox and I had some things to say, and I felt really passionate about this stuff. I felt really strongly,” she said. “I felt so strongly that I also got a megaphone out on my soapbox. There was no part of me that imagined a bad reaction.”
“I felt really justified in how I felt about it and where I was coming from,” Heigl continued. “I’ve spent most of my life — I think most women do — being in that people-pleasing mode.”
“It’s really disconcerting when you feel like you have really displeased everybody. It was not my intention to do so, but I had some things to say, and I didn’t think I was going to get such a strong reaction.”
She admitted the success of Grey’s Anatomy gave her “a false sense of confidence.”
“It was rooted in something that couldn’t and maybe wouldn’t always last for me,” she explained. “So then I started getting real mouthy, because I did have a lot to say, and there were certain boundaries and things that I was not OK with being crossed. I didn’t know how to fight that.”
Heigl left Grey’s Anatomy in 2010, and it took several more years for her to come to her terms with the backlash.
“I was in my late 20s. It took me until probably my mid- to late 30s to really get back to tuning out all of the noise and going, ‘But who are you? Are you this bad person? Are you ungrateful? Are you unprofessional? Are you difficult?’” she recalled.
She explained, “Because I was confused! I thought maybe I was. I literally believed that version, and felt such shame for such a long time, and then had to go, ‘Wait. Who am I listening to? I’m not even listening to myself. I know who I am.’”
Heigl, who now stars on Netflix’s Firefly Lane, revealed that she had found a new sense of freedom with age.
“I think for me, I just felt that 40 was freedom, because I didn’t have to be the young, sweet, naive, people-pleasing ingénue anymore,” she explained. “I had outgrown it.”
Back in 2021, Heigl admitted to PEOPLE that she could have handled her experience on Grey’s Anatomy differently.
“I know there’s a better way to deal with those things than I did,” she shared at the time. “I could have handled it with more grace.”
“Something else that experience taught me is that no matter how big an opportunity or how rewarding something is, there will be moments of struggle,” she added. “There will be difficulties and disappointment and miscommunications, but you must learn how to manage those with grace instead of fear.”
Grey’s Anatomy can be streamed on Hulu and Netflix and Firefly Lane is streaming in full on Netflix.
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