Originally appeared on E! Online
Ellen Pompeo is not afraid to call a code green.
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The “Grey’s Anatomy” star recently detailed her experience fighting for equal pay on the medical drama after years of being paid less than costar Patrick Dempsey, despite playing the title character.
“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve that money,” Pompeo said on the March 18 episode of “Call Her Daddy.” “Just being that I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get. I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got. I was salty that they didn’t value me as much as they valued him and they never will.”
The “Good American Family” star — who eventually brokered a deal in 2017 to earn $20 million per season starting with the 14th season — also explained how the pay discrepancy existed since the show’s 2005 launch.
“He had done like 13 pilots before me,” Pompeo continued. “That was my first pilot I’d ever done. Back in those days, you had a quote and with every TV pilot you did, you got your quote. So, if you’ve done 13 TV pilots — and, nothing personal to him, but just in general, only a man can have 13 failed TV pilots and their quote still keeps going up — his quote was what it was.”
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She added, “He was a bigger star than I was at that point. No one knew who I was. So, he did deserve that money.”
But when the time came to advocate for higher pay, Pompeo — who shares kids Stella Luna, 15, Sienna May, 10, and Eli Christopher, 8, with husband of 17 years Chris Ivery — asked for show creator Shonda Rhimes’ blessing before talking to the finance team.
“I said to her, ‘I’m gonna go in and ask for this much. Are you cool with that?’” Pompeo explained. “Just because I don’t wanna be disrespectful to her, I don’t wanna come off crazy, and I wanna let her know what moves I’m making, because I do respect her. I am grateful to her. And she was like, ‘Yeah, no one’s gonna give it to you, you have to ask for it.’”
E! News reached out to ABC for comment but has not heard back.
After completing her quest for better pay, Pompeo now sees her experience as a tool she can leverage to help other women.
“Once you get to a certain level, you can advocate for other women on your platform or in your workplace,” she shared. “If you know that you are getting this much and all the other women are well beneath you, you can’t just be OK with that. You really do have a responsibility to look and see what everybody else is making and use your power to say, ‘Listen, I appreciate what I got. But I really think that all the women deserve a bump.’”
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