Shonda Rhimesis opening up about the reason why network executives believedGrey’s Anatomywould fail before the show premiered in 2005.
TheABC medical drama’s creatorrecalled a meeting with the executives, who were skeptical that the show would find an audience as it was the first of its kind on television.
“It feels really obviousnow, I think, but at the time, you have to remember, there had never been a show in which there was a lead character who owned her sexuality on network television,” Rhimes, 52, said in a preview of Tuesday’s9 to 5ish with the Skimmpodcast shared with E! News.
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In the pilot episode, viewers saw Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) sleep with a man who turns out to be Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a new surgeon at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, where she is also starting as an intern.
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“I remember getting called into a room full of old men to tell me that the show was a problem,” Rhimes recalled. “Because nobody was gonna watch a show about a woman who would sleep with a man the night before her first day of work, and they were dead serious.”
Grey’s Anatomy season 1 cast.Frank Ockenfels/Walt Disney Television via Getty
“Shonda looked like she wanted to throw up, which was the appropriate response to this, but I couldn’t help it, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s me. I did that. That’s absolutely me,'” Beers explained. “I remember I was saying that and I just blurted it out, because it was true.”
After the revelation, Rhimes recalled how the executives “could not get out of that room fast enough.” She added, “They didn’t know what to do. They were like, ‘These are these kinds of women we don’t like.'”
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Rhimes and Beers turned out to be correct about the show’s success asGrey’s Anatomycelebratedits 400th episode in May.
At the time, Disney — the parent company of ABC — shared photos onInstagram, revealing how the cast and crew was commemorating the milestone together. Pompeo, 52, was among those to deliver a speech during the cake-cutting ceremony.
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Grey’s Anatomyairs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
source: people.com
