Ellen Pompeo has been picking, choosing and loving her husband, Chris Ivery, since they met in 2003.
However, when Grey’s Anatomy hit it big two years later, it posed a new challenge for the couple.
“Grey’s kind of came out of no where for us, and I just think we were on this crazy ride,” she told podcast host Alex Cooper on the March 18 episode of Call Her Daddy. “We were just trying to hang on for dear life.”
And beyond the chaos of starring in a new, hit show, criticism of the actress’ husband—who she married in 2007 and has since welcomed three children with—added a new layer of difficulty.
“Part of it that was more intense for me, even more than that,” she continued, “was back to the tabloid stuff of how they started attacking him.”
After sharing that the media was “bringing up his past things, and a record that he had, and stuff that he did,” Ellen described how she believed his race played a role in the hate.
“The truth is, Black men in the country aren’t given the same opportunities as everybody else,” she said. “The media was really mean to him and really biased, because how dare this skinny, blonde, petite little woman be with this tall Black man.”
She added, “The visual of that, I think, America wasn’t ready for that.”
The 55-year-old also explained how she felt it was unfair to him, noting, “the racial component of our relationship was really something that he never asked for.”
Another challenge Grey’s Anatomy brought Ellen? The pay gap between her and costar Patrick Dempsey.
“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve that money,” she said. “Just being that I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get. I wasn’t salty about him getting what he got. I was salty that they didn’t value me as much as they valued him and they never will.”
