4 Most Dramatic Grey’s Anatomy Actors’ Exits Fans Will Never Forget

During 19 seasons, a lot had happened to the Grey’s Anatomy characters. Love affairs, betrayals, deaths and the list goes on. The cast of the show was always changing, with its core members still stealing the spotlight.

But it’s impossible to save everyone involved in the show which has been on the air for 18 years. Some cast members left because they wanted to, and some were forced to quit. Either way, some departures were surrounded by drama.

1. Katherine Heigl

Heigl was the first one from the permanent cast to leave the show. In the series, the story of her departure was a good one – Izzie found a new job and moved away from Seattle. But in real life, the reasons for the actress’s exit were more complicated.

It was revealed that Katherine criticized the show and its writers a lot. Apparently some of this criticism also was about the showrunner, Shonda Rhimes, too. Lots of Grey’s anatomy fans started to hate Heigl for that. And later the crew also revealed that she was extremely “difficult” to work with.

2. Patrick Dempsey

Another example of a difficult person to work with was Patrick Dempsey. While he was McDreamy on screen, he seemed to be a real jerk off screen.

Dempsey died in season 11 of the show, which made a lot of fans feel sorry for his character. But after it was revealed that he was constantly complaining about almost everything on set – working long hours, the schedule, the script – and actually terrorizing the set, he lost fans’ hearts in an instant.

3. Sandra Oh

This is probably one of the few exits that were dramatic in a different way. Sandra Oh left the show at the end of season 10 because she felt that she had given everything she could to it.

Her exit story in the show was great, she moved to Zurich to work there. But so was her last goodbye with the cast and crew. She threw a huge celebration and left the show on good terms with everyone. This time, the drama was exclusively about the fandom having to move on from her character.

4. Isaiah Washington

By far, the only cast member to be fired from the show. In 2007, he was accused of using an anti-gay slur against T.R. Knight on set. This reportedly led to a physical confrontation between him and Patrick Dempsey, who wanted to make him pay for his words.

Even though there were many cast and crew members who saw and heard everything, Washington still never admitted that what he did was wrong and never took responsibility for his actions.