Former Grey’s Anatomy star Sarah Drew has clarified the comments she made after being fired from the show back in 2018.
Appearing on an episode of the Call It What It Is podcast titled “Call It With Sarah Drew,” Drew spoke with hosts and former co-stars Camilla Luddington and Jessica Capshaw about what it was like being let go from her role as Dr. April Kepner.
Luddington joined Grey’s Anatomy in 2012 as Dr. Josephine “Jo” Wilson and Capshaw portrayed pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins and was a regular on the show before departing in March 2018. Drew and Capshaw being written off went hand in hand, with both of their departures being included in the Season 14 finale.
Drew was previously open about the fact she wasn’t ready to leave the hit show and in a September 2018 with Vulture, she likened being let go after nine seasons on the long-running series to her own funeral.
Now she has expanded on her past comments while in conversation with Luddington and Capshaw and spoken about how she handled being, what she thought, “unceremoniously let go in a way that felt really mean and unjust.”
Sarah Drew attends the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s 32nd Annual Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 10, 2024, in West Hollywood, California. She has spoken out about how it felt being fired from “Grey’s Anatomy” and clarified previous comments she made.
Dia Dipasupil/WireImage
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Drew and Shondaland, which produces Grey’s Anatomy, for comment on Wednesday outside of normal business hours.
“So, the aftermath of this, being fired from our family moment, I wound up having to do a bunch of interviews and walk a bunch of red carpets because the web series that I had directed had been nominated for an Emmy,” Drew explained.
“So literally, three months after getting fired I was walking the carpet for Grey’s Anatomy.”
“That’s one of those trippy industry moments,” Luddington quipped, to which Drew agreed, before continuing: “But this is what I wanted to get at, I was like, doing a lot of interviews and everybody wanted to know like, ‘How did it feel?’ whatever, and of course, the one sound bite that everybody took and was plastered on all the headlines that was picked up was, ‘Sarah likens getting fired to attending her own funeral.'”
While Luddington thought it was a “great quote,” Drew used the opportunity to explain what she meant by her comments.
“What I was trying to describe was like, when you’re unceremoniously let go in a way that felt really mean and unjust, and because of that, the outpouring of love was so enormous, that it was like you were sitting there, watching people say all of the things that they love about you, [it was like I was] dead,” she said.
When Luddington asked Capshaw and Drew whether coming back to the show as guest stars felt like “coming home,” Drew said “Absolutely.” However, she clarified that she no longer has any “attachment” to the program.
“So there’s peace … when you’re on the show, you know, you never know what’s going to happen, you never know if they’re going to lose interest in your storyline or if you piss off the wrong person then something’s going to happen. Like, you never know,” she continued.
“But when I just pop back in to say hello, I have zero anxiety and I don’t need anything from anybody on that set anymore. They’re not responsible for my livelihood anymore, they’re not responsible for my success or my joy, so like, it feels very very freeing to pop back in because I’m like, ‘Hey! This is a fun spot to come visit!'”
In an August 2018 with The Hollywood Reporter, Drew said that after she learned she’d been fired she “went back to my trailer and I did my crying and called my people.”
She expanded on her thoughts when speaking to Vulture at BAFTA’s pre-Emmys party in September of that year, in which she said: “In a way, you almost feel like you’re attending your own funeral. Weirdly. But in a really beautiful way.
“I think that in being let go, the outcry of support from fans, from my cast, from my crew, was so extraordinary. I talk about it as being love bombed. It’s like when you’re let go before something ends and when it’s not your choice, people come up and tell you why they love you and how much they love you and what you meant to them.”
Various publications took these quotes and ran, with ET publishing an article with the headline, “Sarah Drew Says ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Exit Was Like ‘Attending My Own Funeral,'” and Cosmopolitan publishing the story, “Sarah Drew Says Leaving ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Has Been Like ‘Attending Your Own Funeral.'”
