Even a decade after her departure, Katherine Heigl and Grey’s Anatomy can’t seem to quit each other.
In a new interview published Friday by the Los Angeles Times, showrunner Krista Vernoff said that Heigl’s character, Dr. Izzie Stevens, was set to receive a farewell episode before Heigl allegedly failed to show up to work.
“On every show I’ve ever worked on, there are stories you wish you could have told differently, but they were derailed by a behind-the-scenes issue,” Vernoff said in the piece, which coincided with the return of Patrick Dempsey’s long-dead character, Dr. Derek Shepherd, to the Grey’s Anatomy narrative. “And that’s the thing that fans don’t understand.”
According to Vernoff, “there was a resolution to Izzie’s story. We had planned to have her come back for an episode to really properly tie up Izzie and Alex (Justin Chambers). And I wrote that episode, and it was beautiful. The day before it was supposed to start prepping or shooting, I can’t remember, we got a call that Katie wasn’t coming. Just wasn’t coming. Wasn’t going to do it.”
Vernoff said she spent “multiple nights” rewriting the script to account for Heigl’s absence. “I’m not saying that to bash Katie. I don’t know what was happening in her life. I don’t know what led to that decision,” she said. “All I know is that the night before a thing is supposed to start shooting that is entirely centered on one character and the completion of her story arc, I got a phone call that she wasn’t coming to do it. That’s what it is to be a TV writer and producer. So, yeah, do I wish I could go back and do that differently? Sure.”
In response, a source close to Heigl told Entertainment Weekly, “This account isn’t true. Krista is mistaken. Katherine was back in LA after parental leave (when she adopted her daughter) waiting to be called to set.”
Representatives for Heigl didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Vanity Fair.
Heigl made her final appearance on Grey’s Anatomy in January 2010, during the show’s sixth season—and two years after the actor pulled herself out of Emmy contention, saying that the series hadn’t given her good enough material to warrant awards. At the time, the episode was imagined as the start of a hiatus for the actress, who was going on paternal leave after adopting her daughter Naleigh. But Heigl told Entertainment Weekly later that year that her priorities shifted while away from the series.
“That was really the turning point for me. So before I was due back, I spoke again to [creator] Shonda [Rhimes] about wanting to leave. Then I waited at home until I was given the formal okay that I was off the show,” Heigl said in an April 2010 interview, before commenting on the speculation that she had declined to go back to work. “The rumors that I refused to return were totally untrue.”
Of her character’s hasty exit, which neglected to offer viewers any closure, Heigl added, “Even though I know I’m disappointing the fans, and I know I’m disappointing the writers and my fellow cast members and the crew, I just had to make a choice. I hope I made the right one.
“You wish you could have it all exactly the way you want it,” she added. “But that’s not life…. I had to try to find the courage to move on. And I am sad. And I’m scared. But I felt it was the right thing to do; we just didn’t quite know how to do it appropriately, gracefully, and respectfully to the audience. And I think we all felt that it wasn’t respectful to the audience to bring [Izzie] back again and then have her [leave] again. We did it twice this season. It starts to feel a little manipulative.”