Ellen Pompeo is a famous American actress. She is best known for her role as Dr. Meredith Grey on the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Since 2017, she has been one of the best-paid actors in the world, and Forbes has put her on their year-end lists more than once. She has won a Screen Actors Guild Award and been nominated for a Golden Globe Award, among other things.
Childhood and Early Years
He was born on November 10, 1969, in Everett, Massachusetts. Her father was born in Gesualdo, Italy, and was of Italian, English, and Irish descent. Her mother was of Irish descent. She grew up in a Catholic family. When she was four, her mother died because she took too many painkillers by accident.
Soon after, her father got a second wife. He died on September 1, 2012. In 2006, Pompeo said, “I think the fact that my mother died at such a young age, at 39, made me value life so much.” She has three sisters (Maureen, Kathleen, and Suzanne) and two brothers (James and John) who are older than her (Joey and Dean).
“The Pencil” and “Stracciatella” were some of her nicknames (Gelato Flavor). When she started dating her then-boyfriend, she was working as a bartender in Miami. In 1995, they moved to New York City. There, a casting director asked her to be in ads for Citibank and L’Oreal.
What is Ellen Pompeo’s Net Worth?
As of November 2022, Ellen Pompeo Has an Estimated Net Worth of $50 Million. She makes about $20 million a year from her role as Meredith Grey on the ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.” This includes her $550,000 per episode salary as well as syndication royalties and revenue.
Due to her successful acting career, Pompeo has been one of the world’s highest-paid TV actors since 2017.
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Grey’s Anatomy Salary
During Grey’s Anatomy Seasons 11 and 12, Ellen made $300,000 per episode, or about $7.5 million a year. For seasons 13 and 14, she made $350,000 per episode or about $8.7 million per year. At this point, she didn’t have any ownership in the show’s backend. Ellen started talking about a new contract after the 14th season ended. Ellen asked Grey’s creator Shonda Rhimes for help with negotiating. She said to her:
When the talks were over, Ellen’s pay went up to $575,000 per episode. That made her salary for a single season $14.4 million. But there’s more! She also got two back-end percentage points of the money made from rebroadcasting the show.
This gives Ellen an extra $6-7 million every year. Ellen will make a little more than $20 million for “Grey’s Anatomy” in total, starting with the 15th season. Still, that’s not all! Ellen’s new deal gives her a credit as a producer on any future Grey’s spinoffs and pilots that her production company is asked to make.
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Ellen Pompeo’s Acting Journey
Ellen moved to Miami in the mid-1990s, where she worked as a bartender. Then, in 1995, she moved to New York City with her boyfriend to try to become a model. While she was in New York, a casting director saw her and asked her to be in some ads for Citibank and L’Oreal.
She first appeared on TV in 1996 as a guest star on the NBC show “Law & Order.” Her first role in a full-length movie was a small one in the 1999 movie “Coming Soon.” In 2000, she was on “Law & Order” again.
In 2001, Pompeo moved to Los Angeles and was in the film “Mambo Cafe.” When she was cast in the 2002 movie “Moonlight Mile,” where she played Jake Gyllenhaal’s sympathetic love interest, it was a turning point.
Her performance caught the attention of critics, and many of them said that she should be nominated for an Academy Award. She was in “Catch Me If You Can” in 2002. She was in “Old School,” a comedy with Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell that came out in 2003.
Then, she played Naomi, Jim Carrey’s ex-girlfriend, in the 2004 movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” but her scenes were later cut. In the 2003 Marvel movie “Daredevil,” Pompeo played the part of Karen Page.
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How Ellen Pompeo Became a Renowned Name in The Entertainment Industry?
Ellen’s career took off in 2005 when she was cast in “Grey’s Anatomy,” an ABC medical drama created by Shonda Rhimes. Meredith Grey, an intern in surgery at the made-up Seattle Grace Hospital and the main character of the show, was played by Pompeo. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
Ellen would later say that when she read the pilot script, she was “very close” to being broke. The show was an instant hit, and critics liked it a lot. She has been nominated for five People’s Choice Awards, and she has won three of them. In 2007, Pompeo was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series.
The same year, “Grey’s Anatomy” won the award for Best Drama Series. Later that year, the National Italian American Foundation gave her an award for her work in entertainment at a black-tie gala. As of this writing, there have been more than 363 episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” spread out over 16 seasons.
In 2011, Pompeo started her own production company called Calamity Jane and sold its first project to ABC. In 2014, Pompeo was in the music video for “Bad Blood,” a song by Taylor Swift. Since 2011, Pompeo has worked on other projects as a producer. In season 13 of Grey’s Anatomy, she directed her first episode.
On August 14, Pompeo told the press that she was working on two dramas for ABC studios. She was listed as a co-producer for a show called “Station 19,” which was a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy. In 2019, Pompeo appeared on “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars” as a guest judge.
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Let’s Take a Closer Look into Ellen Pompeo’s Personal Life!
In 2003, Pompeo met Chris Ivery in a LA grocery store. After being friends for 6 months, they started dating. They got married in 2007, and the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, was a legal witness. Together, they have two daughters and a son.
Pompeo slammed reports in the media that said she had an eating disorder. He said it was irresponsible for the media to spread such rumors. In a 2007 issue of Los Angeles Confidential Magazine, she said she was worried about the young girls who look up to her: “I don’t want them to think I starve myself or don’t eat, and that’s what they have to do to be like me.”
Pompeo, Shonda Rhimes, and the stars of Rhimes’ ABC Thursday line-up shows, Scandal’s Kerry Washington and How to Get Away With Murder’s Viola Davis, all supported Hillary Clinton in a 2016 US election ad that compared her to the main characters of Rhimes’ shows.
In the video, the actresses say that Olivia Pope, Annalise Keating, and Meredith Grey are “Brilliant” and “Complex” women who fight for justice and speak up for those who don’t have a voice. Rhimes, Davis, Pompeo, and Washington all take turns praising the presidential candidate.
In the end, Rhimes says, “Our characters are on TV, but Hillary Clinton is in the real world.” Clinton sent out a tweet in response to the video that said, “What a strong group of people! We’re glad you’re on this team.”
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