Ellen Pompeo Says Husband Chris Ivery ‘Really Never Watched’ Grey’s Anatomy: ‘It Was Better for Him’

Ellen Pompeo and her husband support each other in their own way.

During her Wednesday, March 19 appearance on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, the actress, 55, said that her husband, Chris Ivery, doesn’t know her as Meredith Grey like the rest of the world. In fact, Pompeo revealed that Ivery hasn’t really seen Grey’s Anatomy, in which she starred for nearly two decades.

“I mean, Chris really never watched the show,” she said, explaining how “that helped” them keep their relationship separate from her reputation being in one of the most beloved TV love stories with Derek Shepard (Patrick Dempsey). “It was better for him. He knew just not to watch. I was with him before Grey’s, so Grey’s kinda came out of nowhere for us, and I just think we were on this crazy ride that, we were just trying to hang on for dear life.”

Pompeo and Ivery, a record producer, met in 2003 and tied the knot in 2007. They have since welcomed three children, and Pompeo said they purposely like to keep their marriage and family life out of the public eye.

“The part of it that was more intense for me — back to the tabloid stuff — [was] how they started attacking him and bringing up his past things and a record that he had and stuff that he did,” she told Cooper. “We don’t need to get into a whole racial breakdown here, but the truth is, young black men in this country aren’t given the same opportunities as everybody else. And a lot of people come from rough neighborhoods. I came from a rough neighborhood. I did plenty of dirt when I was young.”

“The racial component of our relationship was really something that he never asked for,” she continued. “And I felt really more bad about that, that I felt like 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? The visual of that — I think America wasn’t ready for that.”

People would go as far as sending “racist, hateful, violent mail” to Pompeo and ABC, she shared, noting that this behavior was unfortunately nothing new for Ivery.

“Chris is biracial,” Pompeo explained. “His mother is white Jewish, and he grew up in Boston in the 70s in a real super liberal, hippie sort of place. So he was very familiar, obviously, with that type of attention and negativity. Boston historically was always a super racist place, everybody knows that.”

In many ways, Ivery’s upbringing brought him and Pompeo closer together, she added.

“I think that what’s funny about Chris and I, because we come from the same place, we’re sort of two kids who made it out and then landed in Hollywood and jumped on this ride. We just couldn’t believe that something was actually happening — that it was great, that I had this great job and we were getting to travel all over the world.”

When times got tough as the hit medical drama — which Pompeo left as a series regular in 2024 after 19 seasons — gained popularity, she said she and Ivery always knew “we had each other.”

“He’s a big reason how I got through all that, because he did understand, because he is cut from the same cloth as I am,” she said. “[With] women in media, people see you and they have a certain idea about who you should be. And for me, people aren’t used to — probably people see me and they think they know who I am, and they don’t know that.”

Pompeo described herself as “this tough, half-mafia, half-street fighter,” which differs so heavily from her onscreen persona.

“I’m confusing to people because they see me and they think I’m one thing or they see Meredith and they think that’s me and that’s who I am, but really, I’m really very different,” she said. “I probably should have been on The Sopranos more than Grey’s Anatomy.”