Ellen Pompeo Says Her Pay Raise Had Nothing to Do With Changes to Grey's Anatomy Lineup 

By Lauren Evans  |  March 9, 2018 | 1:30am
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Ellen Pompeo has been more than transparent about her salary demands and her reasons behind them, but she says that under no circumstances is her pay raise responsible for the departures of longtime Grey’s Anatomy series regulars Sarah Drew and Jessica Capshaw.

Deadline reported the news of Drew and Capshaw’s departures on Thursday, prompting immediate backlash that the outlet suggested that Pompeo’s salary was the reason for the shakeup. Probably the trouble was with this line:

The decision not to bring back Capshaw and Drew comes on the heels of the blockbuster new Pompeo pact that gave her a significant salary increase, paying her as much as $20 million a year.

In response, Pompeo leaped to Twitter to clear things up:

Co-showrunner Krista Vernoff also tweeted a statement:

A contrite Deadline added Vernoff’s statement in an update, which also said,

While Deadline’s story stressed that the decision for Capshaw and Drew’s exits was strictly creative, the mention of the big new deal for Pompeo, which helped secure a renewal for Grey’s, led to online speculation about a possible connection between the two.
There is no such connection that we are aware of. Because this has become an issue, pitting women against each other on International Women’s Day, we are making it clear.

[People/Deadline]

Kelis is celebrating International Women’s Day the right way: She bought a farm, and on that farm she plans to produce all her own milk, cheese and butter for the restaurant she’s going to open because she’s a self-sufficient badass. From Page Six:

“In this past year I’ve kinda felt like I need a restaurant,” she started. “I need a space where I can actually be creative and I can do this on a daily basis. That being really necessary for me. I decided yeah, well how do I do that in staying with who I am and in the realm of control that I like to have. So I felt like, you know what, let’s do a farm. We started looking for a farm. We found a property. And we’re going to start to grow everything.”

Let’s do a farm! Well, maybe not all of us. Kelis did actually graduate from Le Cordon Bleu before launching a line of sauces, and a cookbook. Okay, so let’s let Kelis do a farm. Yeah!

[Page Six]