ABC
Ellen Pompeo was the featured guest on Monday’s (March 17) edition of The View, and the Grey’s Anatomy star made a rather startling revelation about the price of her television fame.
When asked how she kept her head held high while reading negative tabloid headlines that criticized her early on in her career, she said, “I think all young women struggle with confidence, and it makes you super self-conscious. But I also had other fish to fry. I had bigger things [to worry about]. I had death threats from being married to a Black man. It’s not the only thing I dealt with.”
Pompeo has been married to Chris Ivery, a record producer and writer, since 2007. The pair share three children.
The actress was on-hand to promote her new Hulu series Good American Family, which she leads and executive produces. The eight-episode miniseries dramatizes the real-life story and allegations of Natalia Grace, the Ukranian-born orphan with a rare form of dwarfism whose adoptive family became convinced she was an adult masquerading as a child.
Pompeo revealed that she was drawn to join the series after speaking with Imogen Fath Reid, who portrays Natalia Grace, saying, “It was her and her conviction and her wanting to tell this story” that ultimately convinced her to sign on. She also said that she hopes the big takeaway from the series is, “We should rush to judgment a little less… We all should ask ourselves why do we look at something at face value, make a judgment about it?… We all need a lot more empathy right now.”
She then went on to slip in a joke about Donald Trump, saying, “Why are old white men the only ones who are allowed to be felons? No one else can stay in this country can stay if they’re a felon, but somehow if you’re…”
“And he’s not even that white. Have you seen his makeup?” Ana Navarro quickly said, earning a “good point” and a chuckle from Pompeo.
Pompeo has been vocal about politics in the past; she even appeared in a campaign video in character as Meredith Grey alongside Scandal‘s Kerry Washington and How to Get Away With Murder‘s Viola Davis in support of Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 presidential campaign.
She was also invited to share some of the pearls of wisdom she’s taken away from working with television titans like Shonda Rhimes and Debbie Allen, and she said, “Shonda taught me that closed mouths don’t get fed and that no one will just give you something. You have to ask, and all anyone can say is no. And I sit in a real position of privilege to even have the power and the privilege of choice. Not everybody recognizes that, but being able to make choices is a privilege that not everyone is afforded. And Debbie taught me the most extraordinary thing that I use in my life every single day, which is ‘Be still.’ Sometimes an action doesn’t need a reaction. Sometimes we can just be still, that’s served me very well because I’m a little hot-headed Irish-Italian.”
