Katherine Heigl Wishes She Would've Just “Shut Up” With Grey's Anatomy Complaints (original) (raw)

It has been eight years since Katherine Heigl’s professional life imploded—or, as the Emmy-winning actress described it, her career “betrayed” her. The same year that she starred in 27 Dresses, the rom-com that proved she was a bankable movie star, Heigl was branded as “difficult” in the media, partially because of statements she made about withdrawing herself from the 2008 Emmy race since she didn’t consider the Grey's Anatomy “material” Shonda Rhimes had given her “to warrant an Emmy nomination.” Nearly a decade later, though, the actress went on Howard Stern’s Sirius radio show to discuss the blowback, clarify her initial statements, and describe how the media’s criticism affected her.

Heigl was quick to backpedal her 2008 statements, explaining that she did not mean to criticize the “material” on Grey’s Anatomy as much as her performance.

“I wasn’t feeling good about my work that season, no,” said Heigl. “As an actor, if you want to get nominated [for an Emmy], you have to submit your work. That year, I said I’m not going to submit [anything] because there is nothing I feel good about. . . . I didn’t feel good about my performance . . . and there was a part of me that thought, because I had won the year before, that I needed juicy, dramatic, emotional material.”

After the remarks were widely circulated in the press, Heigl said that she apologized to Rhimes herself.

“I went in because I was really embarrassed,” Heigl recalled of the meeting. “So I went in to [see] Shonda and said, ‘I'm so sorry. That wasn’t cool, and I should not have said that.’ And I shouldn’t have said anything publicly. But at the time, I didn’t think anyone would notice. . . . I just quietly didn’t submit and then it became a story, and I felt I was obligated to make my statement, and [I should have just said], ‘Shut up, Katie.’”

(At the time, though, The New York Times reported, “The remark has fueled speculation in Hollywood that Ms. Heigl, 29, wants out of her contract on the series. This is the second time in little over a year that a dispute between Ms. Heigl and the show’s producers has spread beyond the studio soundstage.”)

Heigl also revealed that she was so traumatized by the fallout that she eventually sought professional help.

“I had never done therapy until a couple years ago,” said Heigl. “I started going because of the . . . scrutiny. I was not handling it well. I was feeling completely like the biggest piece of shit 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. It was at first very hard.

“It is definitely anxiety-inducing,” Heigl continued. “And for me, it’s a lot too about just wanting to sleep at night. I don’t want to compromise who I am and what I have to say that I go to bed [thinking about saying stuff that is not me].”

Lest you think Heigl has been subjecting herself to daily therapy sessions since 2008 as some sort of professional penance, the actress clarified later in the interview, “I’ve only gone about five times in my life.”

The actress was so determined to reverse her reputation of being difficult, she said, that she has since tried to keep her mouth shut on set even when she shouldn’t have.

“I remember doing this little independent movie and just being afraid to say anything about anything,” Heigl said. “I remember wearing shoes a size too small because I was afraid to tell wardrobe that they weren’t big enough because I didn’t want to be difficult. And after that, I was like, This is nonsense. Stop it.”

The actress also caught heat for remarks she made in this very magazine about Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, in which she co-starred.

For the 2008 story, Heigl told _Vanity Fair_’s Leslie Bennetts that she had some personal problems with the film:

“It was a little sexist,” she says. “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

During her Howard Stern interview on Tuesday though, Heigl backpedaled those statements as well, saying, “I liked the movie a lot. I just didn’t like me.” Of her character, Heigl explained, “She was kind of like, she was so judgmental and kind of uptight and controlling and all these things and I really went with it while we were doing it, and a lot of it, Judd allows everyone to be very free and improvise and whatever, and afterwards, I was like, ‘Why is that where I went with this? What an asshole she is!’”

Even so, Heigl revealed that she still has not apologized to Apatow. “I’ve thought about writing a note. I feel embarrassed,” she admitted. “I don’t want to feel insincere on any level.”