Grey’s Anatomy almost needed of a resuscitation before it premiered.
The longtime medical drama’s creator Shonda Rhimes recently recalled how the show almost never made it to the small screen at all due to the opposition she received from network executives.
“It feels really obvious now, 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 recalled during a preview of Oct. 25’s episode of theSkimm‘s 9 to 5ish podcast, which was exclusively shared with E! News. “I remember getting called into a room full of old men to tell me that the show was a problem, 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.”
In response to the execs saying there wasn’t anything “relatable” about Grey’s Anatomy, Rhimes’ creative partner, Betsy Beers, blurted out the real reason behind Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) decision to hook up with Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) after her first day at Grey Sloan.