Where the original ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ cast is today

1. Isaiah Washington

Isaiah Washington was the first original cast member to leave the show. In 2007, Washington’s character, Preston Burke, was written off the series — following the Season 3 finale — after the actor reportedly used a homophobic slur in reference to co-star T.R. Knight during an on-set argument with Patrick Dempsey. Although Washington issued an apology at the time, he went on to deny it ever happened during a pressroom interview at the Golden Globes that year. Plot-wise, his exit came after his character leaves fiancée Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) at the altar.

“I’m saddened by the outcome,” Washington told Entertainment Weekly later that year.

Washington, 56, then appeared on one more episode in 2014, which ironically was centered around Oh’s exit from the series.

After “Grey’s,” Washington went on to star in the CW series “The 100,” and while he’s still making movies, he most recently made headlines in 2019 when he revealed he was “walking away” from the Democratic party and was supporting Donald Trump.

2. T.R. Knight

T.R. Knight, 46, left the show in 2009 under mysterious circumstances after playing George O’Malley for five seasons. According to Entertainment Weekly, Knight realized his character was getting very little screen time, saying there was a “breakdown of communication” between him and series creator Shonda Rhimes.

“My five-year experience proved to me that I could not trust any answer that was given [about George],” he told the mag. “And with respect, I’m going to leave it at that.”

George was killed off the show after he uncharacteristically decides to join the Army. When a disfigured John Doe comes into the hospital, Meredith realizes it’s George, but it’s ultimately too late and he dies.

Knight went on to do various guest-starring roles on shows like “The Good Wife” and “11.22.63.” If there was any bad blood with Rhimes, it didn’t stop her from casting him in her short-lived series “The Catch” in 2016. Knight is currently filming a TV series called “The Flight Attendant” with Kaley Cuoco.

3. Katherine Heigl

Perhaps the most dramatic “Grey’s Anatomy” exit occurred when Katherine Heigl left the show. Even though we said goodbye to Izzie Stevens in 2010, the drama with Heigl, 41, began in 2008 when she controversially told the Los Angeles Times (via The New York Times) that she’d withdrawn her name from the Emmy contenders list.

“I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination,” she said. “In addition, I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials.”

There had already been rumors at the time that she’d been trying to get out of her contract, but she would continue playing the part until 2010, when she confirmed she was “done.”

Two years later, Shonda Rhimes finally commented on Heigl’s interview about the Emmys, saying, “On some level, it stung and on some level I was not surprised.” Then in 2014, while discussing her hit show “Scandal,” Rhimes doubled down on her comments. “There are no Heigls in this situation,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, adding of her “no a–hole” policy, “I don’t put up with bulls–t or nasty people. I don’t have time for it.”

Heigl, who says she immediately apologized to Rhimes for her comments, told Howard Stern in 2016 that the fallout led her to seek therapy. “I was not handling it well. I was feeling completely like the biggest piece of s–t on the bottom of your shoe. I was really struggling with it and how to not take it all personally and not to feel that there’s something really deeply wrong with me,” she said.

Heigl starred in some films, and she is still acting pretty consistently. Most recently, she appeared on the final season of “Suits” after Meghan Markle left the show and is starring alongside Sarah Chalke in Netflix’s adaption of Kristin Hannah’s novel “Firefly Lane,” which is set to come out sometime this year.

4. Kate Walsh

Technically, Kate Walsh was not one of the original “Grey’s Anatomy” cast members, but Addison Montgomery was too iconic of a character not to include in this roundup. Plus, with all the drama of the previous listed cast members, it’s nice to include a happy ending.

Walsh left Seattle Grace Hospital at the end of Season 3 for her own Shonda Rhimes-produced spin-off show, “Private Practice.” The show ran six seasons, from 2007-2013, and centered on Walsh’s character after leaving Seattle for sunny Los Angeles.

In June 2013, Walsh announced she would be departing the series and a few months after that, ABC announced the show would be ending.

Walsh, 52, went on to be on various shows including “13 Reasons Why” and “The Umbrella Academy.”

5. Eric Dane

Like Kate Walsh, Eric Dane is not one of the original cast members, but it’s hard to do a roundup without including one of the show’s most prominent characters, even if he didn’t come in until the end of Season 2.

McSteamy, aka Mark Sloan, met his demise after a plane crash at the end of Season 8. He made his final appearance in the very beginning of Season 9.

“After much consideration and conversations, he and I have decided that this is the right time for his storyline to end,” Rhimes told TVLine at the time. “I wish him the best and I look forward to watching him as he continues to steam up the big and small screen.”

He has said that he left the show to take a job on TNT’s “The Last Ship,” which he called an opportunity he couldn’t pass up at the time.

These days, you can watch Dane, 47, in a very different role on HBO’s “Euphoria.”

6. Sandra Oh

No one needs to Google Sandra Oh to find out what she’s doing these days. Oh’s exit from the series in 2013 was devastating for longtime fans. “Creatively, I really feel like I gave it my all, and I feel ready to let her go,” she told The Hollywood Reporter of saying goodbye to Cristina Yang. Cristina exited the show by taking a coveted position at a medical research facility in Zurich.

Oh, 48, went on to take home the Golden Globe in 2019 for playing Eve Polastri on the hit BBC series “Killing Eve,” but there’s a chance “Grey’s” fans will get one last moment with her “Grey’s” character.

“I told [Shonda Rhimes], ‘If you guys want to finish it out however you want to finish it out, I’d be more than happy to come back. And if it doesn’t fit in that way, I totally understand. I just want you to know that I’m available,’” she said. “Who knows! I might be doing something fabulous and it might not work out but I did say, ‘Yes, of course I would.’”

7. Patrick Dempsey

If you’re sensing a trend here … There appeared to be some tension behind the scenes with McDreamy’s exit from the show, too.

Before he left the series, Patrick Dempsey commented that he was ready to depart the show after his contract was up in 2015.

“Acting (in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’) has been a blessing for me and has allowed me to do all this,” he said in an interview during a charity event in 2014. “But it’s transitional for me right now. I’m looking forward to the next thing, creatively.”

Soon after that, sources told Page Six that Shonda Rhimes had enough of Dempsey’s “diva” behavior, and “suspended him” from the show. “The word on set is that he isn’t coming back full time,” the source added.

Soon after, Derek Shepherd was killed in a car crash.

Following his exit, Dempsey, 54, went on to star in “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” a miniseries called “The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair” and has a show this year called “Devils.”

8. Sara Ramirez

Another important character who was there early on, but not quite there from the beginning, was Dr. Callie Torres. In 2016, after 10 years on the show, Sara Ramirez announced she was saying goodbye.

“I’m deeply grateful to have spent the last 10 years with my family at Grey’s Anatomy and ABC, but for now I’m taking some welcome time off,” she said in a statement on social media.

Insiders told Variety at the time “leaving the show was truly Ramirez’s decision and that there was no bad blood behind the scenes.”

After leaving the series, the 44-year-old joined the cast of “Madam Secretary,” which aired its series finale in December 2019.

9. Justin Chambers

Fans were not pleased with the most recent “Grey’s Anatomy” exit. In a bizarre ending to his long storyline, Alex Karev skips town without saying goodbye to anyone — including his wife, Jo — to move to a farm in Kansas where (surprise!) Izzie had Alex’s children without telling him. So in four separate letters, he says his goodbyes, proving that he may in fact be “evil spawn” after all.

“THE DISRESPECT FOR ALEX KAREV, SHONDA WTF ARE YOU DOING #GreysAnatomy,” one fan tweeted. Another commented, “Are you really saying Justin Chambers is completely fine with his character being butchered like this after years of doing this show? I AM MAD as hell at what they did to alex karev #GreysAnatomy.”

The backlash was so strong, Ellen Pompeo took to Instagram to comment on his exit, “For me personally for Karev to go back to the beginning…. was the best possible storyline. It pays homage to those incredible first years and the incredible cast …that created a foundation so strong that the show is still standing.”

It was announced in January that Chambers, 49, was leaving the show after 15 years. Page Six exclusively revealed at the time that Chambers, who said he left to “diversify my acting roles and career choices,” was working on his mental health at Privé-Swiss, a luxury rehab center in Connecticut.

And despite fans begging Shonda Rhimes not to kill him off, following the episode, many wrote that they wished he’d died versus the ending they gave him.

In an exclusive video, Chambers said he was “very excited” for the next chapter of his life and said he hopes to get into producing documentaries in the future.

“‘Grey’s’ has been very supportive of me and I’m very grateful and it’s been a great ride,” he said.

10. Chandra Wilson

Chandra Wilson may not have been one of the original interns on “Grey’s Anatomy,” but Miranda Bailey has been on the series since the very beginning. With the nickname “The Nazi,” Wilson’s character was the no-nonsense resident who told Meredith and Co. what to do.

The 50-year-old appears to be in for the long-haul, although in 2018, fans were worried her exit was close when Bailey suffered a heart attack.

“Let’s say Bailey has been stressed,” she told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “Is Bailey leaving? I think this is the right thing to say: Bailey’s been stressed and needs to take care of herself.”

11. James Pickens Jr.

Another Seattle Grace mainstay is James Pickens Jr., who still plays Richard Webber on the ABC series. For a long period of time, he was the chief of surgery at the hospital. Although it appears Pickens is also here to stay, fans have also worried that his departure is coming.

In a recent episode, it was revealed that Webber’s hand has an uncontrollable shake, and he’s not sure the cause behind it. In the episode, he gives his stethoscope to someone, saying, “I don’t need it anymore, but I really hope you do.”

“Webber’s shaking hand. PROTECT WEBBER AT ALL COSTS. #GreysAnatomy,” a fan posted on Twitter.

There have been no reports that Pickens will leave the series.

12. Ellen Pompeo

And finally, nobody turned a profit from “Grey’s Anatomy” quite like Ellen Pompeo, who in 2019, landed on the Forbes top 10 highest-paid actresses list with $22 million. But it wasn’t without a fight. In 2018, when she signed a new deal with the network, she said, “For me, Patrick [Dempsey] leaving the show [in 2015] was a defining moment, deal-wise. They could always use him as leverage against me — ‘We don’t need you; we have Patrick’ — which they did for years. I don’t know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.”

Pompeo, 50, has never shied away from the drama that followed the show. In a 2019 Variety interview, she revealed, “The first 10 years we had serious culture issues, very bad behavior, really toxic work environment.”

She added that she made it her mission to fix the behind-the-scenes mess so she could be “happy and proud” of her experience.

By May 2019, it was announced the show — and Pompeo’s contract — had been extended through 2021.