Grey’s Anatomy gave Katherine Heigl her big break, but it’s no secret that her time on this show was pretty rocky. The rumor that she turned down an Emmy nomination for her role on this show has been following her for years, and she cleared it up in a recent interview.
Heigl was a part of the core cast of Grey’s Anatomy when this show first aired in 2005, and she spent six seasons playing Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens. She wasn’t too pleased with the direction Izzie’s character was going from Season 4, and her decision to get vocal about it was pretty controversial back in the day.
All hell broke loose when she released a statement in 2008, saying she wouldn’t submit her work for Emmy consideration because she wasn’t “given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.” Years later, this statement is still misinterpreted as Heigl refusing an Emmy nod itself.
She decided to clear up the confusion during a recent appearance on Shannen Doherty’s podcast Let’s Be Clear and described her refusal to submit her work as a “snarky point” about her material that year.
“I would never be so bold or so arrogant to turn down a nomination. I would take that nomination if it came my way. I’d be down. But I just knew there wasn’t anything that would really warrant one that year, and I was trying to be honorable, I guess. I was trying to have some integrity,” she told Doherty.
