Grey’s Anatomy star, Eric Dane, once revealed the real reason why he was ‘fired’ from the show.
Fans of the hit series will remember when his character, Dr Mark Sloan, was put on life-support following a pretty devastating plane crash in the season eight finale.
While many viewers hoped the whole ordeal was nothing but a fever dream, they were soon met with the reality that he’d been killed off after the character succumbed to his injuries and died peacefully with his friends by his side in the season nine premiere.
While viewers found it hard to let go of one of the show’s most iconic stars, they were later blindsided to discover that the actor hadn’t actually wanted to say goodbye when he did.
Instead, he claims he was ‘probably fired’ from the TV show by producers in 2012, speaking out on his exit in a bombshell interview.
Speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast some months back, Dane, 52, – who played ‘Dr McSteamy’ on the show for six seasons from 2006 to 2012 – began his argument by claiming: “I didn’t leave so much as I think I was let go.”
Podcast host Dax Shepard then went on to ask the actor about his prior struggles with both drugs and alcohol addiction, and whether or not they affected his exit.
“I was struggling,” Dane replied, adding, however: “They didn’t let me go because of that, although it definitely didn’t help.”
In fact, he eluded to the possibility that, having become one of Grey’s Anatomy’s most in-demand actors, he’d simply become ‘too expensive’.
“I was starting to become – as most of these actors who have spent significant time on the show – you start to become very expensive for the network,” he explained.
“And the network knows that the show is going to do what it’s going to do irrespective of who they keep on it – as long as they have their Grey they were fine.”
During the series eight finale, Dane’s character Dr Sloan – joined by co-stars Chyler Leigh (Lexie), Patrick Dempsey (Derek), Ellen Pompeo (Meredith), Sandra Oh (Cristina), and Jessica Capshaw – was involved in a major aviation incident whilst on the way to perform surgery on conjoined twins.
Whilst his on-screen love interest Lexie is killed by debris, Dr Sloan survives but is placed on life support due to the extensive injuries he sustained.
The ninth series subsequently sees him reappear in flashbacks, but his machine is turned off as per his own wishes after 30 days.
Despite his premature departure, Dane now says that the show’s producer Shonda Rhimes had his back during the behind-the-scenes awkwardness.
The actor previously opened up about why he was ‘fired’ from the series (Eric McCandless / Contributor / Getty Images)
“She protected us fiercely,” he claimed. “She protected us publicly, she protected us privately. I love Shonda Rhimes and she protected me but I was probably fired.
“It wasn’t ceremoniously like, ‘You’re fired,’ it was just like, ‘You’re not coming back’.”
After he left the show, Dane says he endured a dry-spell when it comes to work, claiming his career went ‘sideways’.
“If you take the whole eight years I was on Grey’s Anatomy, I was f***ked up longer than I was sober and that was when things started going sideways for me,” he explained.
Some of the more famous episodes includes titles like; ‘Losing My Religion’ like R.E.M’s 1991 smash-hit, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ like The Beatles’ 1964 classic and ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ which was written by singer Cat Stevens back in the late 60s.
However, there is one episode out of the entire series – which, by the way, spanning over 400 episodes – which breaks this tradition.
The one and only exception to date took place in the 14th season which came out back in 2017.
Season 14’s episode 9 is titled ‘1-800-799-7233’. (Richard Cartwright / Contributor / Getty Images)
The ninth episode in this season was not named after a song but instead titled ‘1-800-799-7233’ which is actually the phone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Originally titled ‘Four Seasons in One Day’, the episode in question which centres around a general surgeon named Paul Stadler (Matthew Morrison), who also happened to be Jo’s (Camilla Luddington) abusive ex-husband, shines a much-needed light on the extremely serious impact of domestic violence and abuse.
Showrunner, Krista Vernoff, tweeted back in 2018 that the ‘brilliant’ idea to rename the episode to the hotline number was suggested to her by actor Giacomo Gianniotti, who plays Dr. Andrew DeLuca.
The title is the phone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. (Richard Cartwright / Contributor / Getty Images)
She wrote at the time: “Giving credit where it’s due: this title change was pitched to me by @GiacomoKG.
“Brilliant idea. Important. Thank you!”
Luddington opened up about the episode to Entertainment Weekly that same year, saying: “Krista [Vernoff], and myself and all the writers, because it’s been such a long time coming, there have been so many conversations with domestic abuse organisations.
“We ended up feeling like even just the words and the dialogue that we wanted to use in several scenes, we were just particular with it, because at the end of the day, we wanted to tell this story right, and also educate people that have misconceptions about domestic abuse, who it happens to, and what it looks like.”
