Ellen Pompeo's Candid Confessions: Getting Held by TSA Over Sunflower Seeds and Extra
Ellen Pompeo no longer too long ago published she was held at TSA over…her gain of sunflower seeds. Read extra of the Grey's Anatomy famous person's candid confessions, together with how worthy of the display mask she's undoubtedly watched.
There’s the musty asserting that an apple a day keeps the doctor away—but clearly, the identical doesn’t relief ethical for sunflower seeds and TSA agents.
No longer decrease than that was the skills of Ellen Pompeo, who detailed how a bomb squad investigated her shuttle snack whereas she was on the airport.
“I had a gain of sunflower seeds, treasure organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they comprise been doubtlessly the most costly sunflower seeds money have to buy,” the Grey's Anatomy famous person no longer too long ago cracked to Plug back and forth + Leisure of buying on the upscale organic L.A.-based entirely grocery chain. “They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in. And I was treasure, what’s going down? Is that this a joke?”
Quite the opposite, it was no laughing subject. And no, they weren’t proper drawn to what she planned to exhaust all the arrangement throughout the flight.
“They acknowledged it was most seemingly a chemical on the packaging of these trim dear, like, organic, neat sunflower seeds,” she defined. “My protein on the aircraft!”
Even supposing Pompeo acknowledged she equipped to merely throw out the seeds, she celebrated she mute had to wait on except the bomb squad carried out their review.
“I virtually missed the flight,” the actress added to the magazine. “It was undoubtedly treasure no one would ever imagine this! I was texting my publicist asserting, 'I may maybe well well presumably no longer gain on this aircraft, and also you're never gonna wager why.'”
All in all, the final ordeal was a ways from a McDreamy effort. Then another time, this wasn’t the predominant time Pompeo made headlines over a candid confession.
Who may maybe well well well neglect when she acknowledged Denzel Washington “went HAM on my ass” over a line she’d improvised whereas he was directing an episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Or, when she admitted she hasn’t seen most episodes of her comprise long-operating clinical drama?
Must hear extra of Pompeo’s correct revelations? No must web bellow Dr. Meredith Grey. Appropriate protect studying.
On the TSA Confiscating Her Snack
Ellen Pompeo's outing to the airport got off to a turbulent inaugurate thanks to the TSA confiscating her snack.
“I had a gain of sunflower seeds, treasure organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they comprise been doubtlessly the most costly sunflower seeds money have to buy,” the Grey's Anatomy famous person recalled to Plug back and forth + Leisure in Also can 2025. “They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in. And I was treasure, what’s going down? Is that this a joke?”
Then another time, TSA was entirely severe.
“They acknowledged it was most seemingly a chemical on the packaging of these trim dear, like, organic, neat sunflower seeds,” Pompeo continued. “My protein on the aircraft!”
Whereas she acknowledged she equipped to throw away the seeds so she may maybe well well well presumably be on her formula, she celebrated the TSA agent required her to remain set and anticipate a bomb squad to ascertain all the things out.
“I virtually missed the flight,” Pompeo shared. “It was undoubtedly treasure no one would ever imagine this! I was texting my publicist asserting, 'I may maybe well well presumably no longer gain on this aircraft, and also you're never gonna wager why.'”
On Judgment She Received About Her Weight
Pompeo has played Dr. Meredith Grey for approximately twenty years, and she'll never neglect the public scrutiny she faced over her physique when she first entered Hollywood.
“I was so skinny and I hated it and everybody belief I had an eating disorder,” she suggested Folk in February 2025. “It was a entire effort with how skinny I was, and there was so worthy detrimental attention. Ladies this day may maybe well even be comely and thin and thank God we're no longer allowed to enlighten on ladies's bodies, although people carry out. Nevertheless I proper had so worthy alarm and lacked self-treasure because people comprise been so serious of my physicality.”
The tabloids in explicit, Pompeo added, “would affirm antagonistic things.”
“I proper keep in mind being so anxious on crimson carpets, and the comments about my weight and my physique,” the actress continued. “I'm so delighted, maybe, hopefully things comprise changed, because it was worthy, worthy extra brutal Two decades ago.”
On the Time She and Denzel Washington Went “At It”
For a 2016 episode of Grey's Anatomy titled “The Sound of Silence,” Denzel Washington came in to bellow. Then another time, Pompeo instructed their time working together wasn't all delicate.
“Working with Denzel was inconceivable,” she acknowledged on a 2021 episode of her podcast Train Me With Ellen Pompeo. “He went nuts on me. Right here’s a sexy Denzel account.”
The instruct regarded as if it may maybe well truly probably well well stem from Pompeo improvising a line all the arrangement through a scene with a castmate.
“That wasn’t within the dialogue, and Denzel went HAM on my ass,” she continued. “He was treasure, 'I’m the director. Don’t you voice him what to relief out.'”
Then another time, Pompeo didn't admire the Oscar winner's response.
“I was treasure, 'Listen, motherf–ker,'” she added. “'Right here’s my display mask. Right here’s my place. Who are you telling? You barely know where the john is.'”
And whereas Pompeo insisted she has “the utmost respect” for Washington as an actor and director, she admitted they “went at it.”
“We didn’t gain through it with out a struggle,” she celebrated, “but that’s actors for you: Passionate and fiery and that’s where you gain the magic and that’s where you gain the pretty stuff. So, it was a great skills. It undoubtedly was.”
For his phase, Washington has implied he doesn't give the moment worthy belief.
“No, no,” the Support in mind the Titans famous person suggested Differ in 2022, insisting he doesn't keep in mind the incident before adding, “Then another time it’s all pretty.”
On How Many Grey's Anatomy Episodes She's Truly Watched
Whereas bigger than 400 episodes of Grey's Anatomy comprise aired, Pompeo hasn't watched them all.
“No, no longer even close,” she acknowledged on a 2022 episode of her podcast when requested if she remembers every, “and I haven’t undoubtedly seen most of them. I’ve watched superb a handful. The few instances that I directed I went relief and watched some musty episodes.”
On the Grey's Anatomy Storyline She Changed into Against
Whenever you comprise been to ask Pompeo, some Grey's Anatomy plotlines weren't precisely what the doctor ordered.
“I don’t continually comprise a affirm within the alternate choices the personality makes,” she defined to Differ in April 2025 about Meredith Grey's actions. “And writers will on the initiating carrier a predicament before they may maybe well presumably halt to assume, 'Would the Meredith Grey that [Ellen] built—would she assemble that need?'”
Basically, Pompeo acknowledged there was one storyline earlier that twelve months in which she “was deeply against a need that Meredith was making.” Going down over the direction of two episodes, Pompeo's Dr. Meredith Grey discovers that Dr. Evynn Moore (Lena Waithe) tried defending up her foremost other's Alzheimer’s prognosis so she may maybe well well well be eligible for a wished liver transplant.
“My instruct with that storyline was the Meredith Grey that I’ve created would comprise continually been treasure, 'I’m pissed that you lied, [but] let’s settle out how to sport the plan together to gain you this f–king liver. F–okay the plan. The plan is broken,'” Pompeo added. “As an different, Meredith chooses, for some aim, to be mad and snitch and voice UNOS and voice the board that she lied and that she shouldn’t gain the liver—when Meredith has subverted the plan for Two decades to relief out the pretty element. She’s done free surgical procedures, whatever it takes, to undoubtedly heal and relief people.”
On Her Husband's Reaction to Her Intimate Grey's Anatomy Scenes
It wasn't long after Pompeo met her husband Chris Ivery at a Entire Meals in 2002 that she filmed the pilot episode of Grey's Anatomy and her entire world changed.
“Unhappy guy!” the SAG Award winner acknowledged on a 2021 episode of the podcast Girls First With Laura Brown. “He had no thought what he was transferring into.”
And having to peep her kiss costar Patrick Dempsey—a.okay.a. Dr. McDreamy—in scenes didn't assemble it any more straightforward.
“I keep in mind on the initiating it was undoubtedly onerous for him,” Pompeo continued. “He was treasure, ‘Right here’s no longer what I signed up for. You’re kissing a man. You dawdle to work and assemble out. I treasure Patrick and all the things. He’s a sexy dude, but undoubtedly? You actresses are nuts. I’m supposed to set up with this?'”
No longer to voice there was the paparazzi. “It was a lot for him on the initiating,” she acknowledged. “He was undoubtedly a trooper, I even must claim. He’s my current person.”
Indirectly, the couple created some boundaries between Pompeo's existence on Grey's Anatomy and her existence at home with Ivery, with whom she shares young people Stella, Sienna and Eli.
“Chris undoubtedly never watched the display mask,” she shared on a March 2025 episode of Call Her Daddy. “That helped. It was greater for him. He knew proper no longer to peep.”
On the Tabloids Concentrating on Her Husband
Then another time, navigating tabloid comments about Pompeo's weight and her onscreen romance weren't the superb challenges she and Ivery faced.
“Section of it that was extra intense for me, even bigger than that, was—relief to the tabloid stuff—how they started attacking him, and bringing up his previous things, and a sage that he did and stuff that he did,” she acknowledged on Call Her Daddy. “We don’t must gain correct into a entire racial breakdown here, however in fact young Shadowy men in this country aren’t given the identical opportunities as everybody else.”
And she or he acknowledged the couple recurrently got hate over their relationship.
“The racial element of our relationship was undoubtedly one thing that he never requested for,” Pompeo added. “I felt undoubtedly extra antagonistic about that—that I felt treasure the media was undoubtedly mean to him and undoubtedly biased. Because how dare this skinny, blonde, limited, dinky, girl be with this big Shadowy man. The visual of that I bid The United States wasn’t moving for that. The mail that I extinct to gain, the racist, hateful, violent mail that ABC would gain thanks to that.”
On Combating for Equal Pay
Pompeo is aware of her price. So, when she realized out her co-famous person Dempsey was being paid bigger than she was, she spoke out.
As Pompeo set it, it wasn't that Dempsey—who left Grey's Anatomy in 2015—didn't deserve the salary he got.
“He was an even bigger famous person than I was on the time,” she defined on Call Her Daddy, noting he had acted on many TV pilots before Grey's Anatomy whereas it was her first. “No one knew who I was. Everyone knew who he was. So he did deserve that cash.”
It was extra the truth that she played the titular personality on a extremely a hit display mask and wished that to be mirrored in her pay.
“I’m no longer asserting he didn’t deserve that cash,” she added. “It’s proper being that I was the namesake of the display mask, I deserved the identical after which [that] was extra troublesome to gain. So I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got. I was salty that they didn’t price me as worthy as they valued him.”
After the sequence files and talking to display mask creator Shonda Rhimes, Pompeo advocated for an even bigger paycheck. In 2018, The Hollywood Reporter published the actress's contract was for $20 million a twelve months—$575,000 per episode—plus a signing bonus, two backend fairness substances, a producing payment, backend on a spinoff sequence, pilot commitments and workplace home for her manufacturing firm.
On Her A long time-Long Escape on Grey's Anatomy
Pompeo has been tied to the display mask ever because it premiered relief in 2005. Nevertheless in 2023, after a whopping 19 seasons, she determined to within the reduction of relief on her appearances on the sequence.
“For me, a wholesome home existence was so main to me—extra main than a occupation,” she acknowledged on a 2020 episode of Jemele Hill's Unbothered podcast. “I didn’t grow up with an extremely at ease childhood. So, the root that I even comprise this big husband and these three comely young people to comprise a soft home existence is de facto one thing I wished to halt to close the outlet in my existence. So, I made the decision to assemble money and no longer scurry inventive appearing roles.”
Nevertheless assemble no mistake: Pompeo is mute fervent. No longer superb does she occassionally seem in episodes, but she also presents voiceover work and serves as an govt producer. And she or he doesn't opinion to step a ways from the display mask fully.
“That may maybe well well well assemble no sense, emotionally or financially,” she suggested EL PAÍS in April 2025. The display mask was streamed bigger than one billion instances in 2024. Extra than one billion instances. The corporations that comprise the display mask and skedaddle the display mask assemble quite some huge cash from our pictures and our voices and our faces. If I comprise been to scuttle away fully, everybody gets to assemble money from my onerous work for Two decades and I wouldn’t assemble any money. To me, it doesn’t assemble any sense that every person [else] gets to benefit off of my onerous work. And emotionally, the display mask formula a lot to people. I are looking out to comprise an attitude of gratitude toward the display mask.”
Source credit : eonline.com
