Ellen Pompeo Actually Hated Grey’s Anatomy’s Iconic ‘Pick Me, Choose Me, Love Me’ Scene
"I was like, ‘I can’t beg a man on TV! This is so embarrassing.’ And then it turns out to be one of the most famous scenes ever," Pompeo said.
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In the Season 1 finale of Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd (Kate Walsh) has come to Seattle Grace Hospital looking for the woman sleeping with her husband, Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey). Quickly, our pioneering Addison deduces that Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is the culprit. What follows in Season 2 is multiple episodes of the Shepherds both trying to repair their marriage and avoid Grey, as Meredith tries to excel at being a surgical resident while getting over Derek. Surprise: It doesn’t work.
Eventually, there is a stand-off. Meredith confronts Derek after surgery. It’s the now infamous “pick me, choose me, love me” scene—a beautiful moment of vulnerability for a woman incapable of admitting her own feelings. But Pompeo, who played Meredith for nearly two decades, actually hated the fan-favorite scene. In a conversation with fellow ex-Grey’s star Katherine Heigl, she said the reason she appeared so emotional during the scene was not due to her acting chops.
“Listen, I don’t know if you remember that I fought that speech so hard. That’s another really interesting thing about life — some things that I was so against, and I was like, ‘I can’t beg a man on TV! This is so embarrassing.’ And then it turns out to be one of the most famous scenes ever,” Pompeo said during the Actors on Actors conversation in Variety.
What made the scene so famous? Meredith, the dark and twisty nepo baby doctor, is in love with an attending surgeon who happens to be married and who forgot to tell her that he’d left his wife (literally moved cross country when he found her in bed with his best friend), but not his marriage (no divorce papers are signed).