A white actress with no memorable work outside of Grey’s Anatomy recently chose violence when she decided to share a tale about veteran actor Denzel Washington. The anecdote was wrought with white privilege and delicate white flower syndrome, and she probably should have kept it to herself. 

Ellen Pompeo had former castmate Patrick Dempsey on her podcast Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo, Variety reported. Instead of discussing their memories or tenure on Grey’s Anatomy, Pompeo randomly brought up when she cussed out Denzel when he was a guest director on the hit series.   

The award-winning star directed an episode from 2016 titled “The Sound of Silence.” It was Pompeo’s first season without longtime costars Dempsey and Sandra Oh. 

In the episode, the actress’ character’s jaw was broken by an epileptic patient. Director and choreographer Debbie Allen tried to lift Pompeo’s spirits by hiring the veteran actor to direct the episode.

In the scene, the actor who broke her character’s jaw spoke too softly for Pompeo’s taste. Instead of staying in her lane, she thought she could do Denzel’s job better than him. 

He checked her, and the caucasity ensued. 

“He made this choice to speak very softly. And [Meredith] was pissed that [she] had to sit there and listen to this apology, and he wasn’t looking at [her] in the eye,” she said about the actor in the scene. “Again, we love actors who make choices, right? And I yelled at him, and I was like, ‘Look at me when you apologize. Look at me.’ And that wasn’t in the dialogue, and Denzel went HAM on my ass.”

Washington rebutted, “‘I’m the director. Don’t you tell him what to do.’”

Pompeo, entirely out of pocket, responded, “And I was like, ‘Listen, motherfucker, this is my show. This is my set. Who are you telling?’ Like, ‘You barely know where the bathroom is. And I have the utmost respect for him as an actor, as a director, as everything, but, like, yo, we went at it one day.”

Respect my ass.

After the disrespectful act occurred, the brazen actress doubled down and snitched to Denzel’s wife, Pauletta, when she visited the set. 

“I was like, ‘Yeah, he yelled at me today. Yeah, he let me have it today, and I’m not okay with him, and I’m not looking at him, and I’m not talking to him,’” Pompeo recalled. She then chalked it up to the idea that actors will be actors, adding, “So we didn’t get through it without a fight, but, you know, that’s actors for you—passionate and fiery—, and that’s where you get the magic, and that’s where you get the good stuff. So it was an amazing experience, it really was.”

When Black Twitter got word of Pompeo’s violation, social media users aired her out. 

 

Denzel has directed a litany of movies, but not another television show.