Ellen Pompeo Made Millions on Grey’s Anatomy — But She Wasn’t Always the Top Earner

After over two decades in the industry, Ellen Pompeo isn’t afraid to speak up for what she believes in — and that includes her salary.

The Grey’s Anatomy star has previously opened up about her salary renegotiations for the hit ABC show, which has been on air for 20 years. In 2018, she candidly explained in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter how she secured $20 million a year, or $575,000 an episode, and became the highest paid actress on TV at the time.

However, asking for more money didn’t come without its challenges she admitted, sharing that she was conditioned to think she was being “greedy.”

“A guy wouldn’t have any problem asking for $600,000 an episode,” she said. “And as women, we’re like, ‘Oh, can I ask for that? Is that OK?’ I’d call [creator] Shonda [Rhimes] and say, ‘Am I being greedy?’ “

In 2022, Pompeo announced she was stepping back from her role as Meredith Grey, though she has continued to appear in episodes since. Now, she’s starring in Hulu’s Good American Family, a show based on the true story of Natalia Grace, whose adoptive parents claimed she was an adult posing as a kid.

Here’s everything to know about how Ellen Pompeo built her worth — and how much she made per episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

How much did Ellen Pompeo make from Grey’s Anatomy?

When Pompeo first joined Grey’s Anatomy in 2005, she was offered a fraction of what she made by the time she stepped back from the show in 2022. Years earlier, the actress revealed to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 that she renegotiated her salary to $575,000 per episode, of which there were 25 in each season.

Additionally, Pompeo secured a seven-figure signing bonus as well as two full backend equity points on the series, which were estimated to bring in an additional $6-7 million. She also received a producing credit.

In March 2025, Pompeo appeared on an episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, elaborating on why she chose to disclose her salary — and how she bargained for it.

“What helps me is to … take myself out of it. When you make a lot of money as a woman, let’s face it, you have power,” she said. “So how can I take that power and do good with it? How can I amplify someone else? How can I lift up someone else who doesn’t sit in the position of privilege that I sit in?”

What has Ellen Pompeo said about negotiating her Grey’s Anatomy salary?

Before she met with the show’s business affairs team, Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter she sought advice from her mentor, showrunner Rhimes.

When the producer was preparing to make her move to Netflix, where she’s helmed a number of shows since, Pompeo said she approached her, telling her that if she wanted to end the show, Pompeo would leave, but if she wanted the show to continue, then Pompeo needed to be “incentivized” and feel “empowered” with some sense of “ownership.”

Though at first she was worried asking for hundreds of thousands more per episode made her greedy, Pompeo said she realized that wasn’t true after her agency ran numbers to prove the revenue she brought in for the long-running show.

“CAA compiled a list of stats for me, and Grey’s has generated nearly $3 billion for Disney,” she said. “When your face and your voice have been part of something that’s generated $3 billion for one of the biggest corporations in the world, you start to feel like, ‘OK, maybe I do deserve a piece of this.’ “

Months later, Pompeo told PEOPLE that the ultimatum came after she realized that if she was spending long amounts of time away from her three kids, it had to be “worth my while.”

“I had [Shonda’s] support and I had the courage to do it and I was also completely willing to walk away,” she said. “I was ready for it to not go my way, that’s the most important thing. It might not go your way, you’ve got to be okay with that.”

How did Ellen Pompeo react to the backlash of her discussing her salary?

Following her frank interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Pompeo faced some backlash from critics chastising her for talking so openly about her salary.

“Women are not used to talking about their salaries,” she told PEOPLE in October 2018. “Ballplayers, CEOs, any man in tech, they can brag about what they’re worth. But it’s not polite for women to do that.”

She continued, “We’re supposed to be shy. That is just ridiculous. We need to brag more. Men have no problem celebrating what they make.”

Pompeo added that much of the backlash came from women, who blamed her larger salary for series regulars Sarah Drew and Jessica Capshaw’s contracts not being renewed.

“I’m not surprised by anything that men say, but for women to blame me? I was completely shocked,” she said. “We need to stick together and support each other, not attack each other. We can’t compete against each other and compare ourselves to one another.”

During her Call Her Daddy appearance, Pompeo reflected that her manager at the time also warned her she might receive criticism for speaking out.

She elaborated that he asked her, “Are you ready to be unpopular?” which she said had “never occurred” to her, but ultimately made sense since “generally it’s hard for people to celebrate other people if they have something that resembles something they want.”

Did Ellen Pompeo make more than Patrick Dempsey on Grey’s Anatomy?

Until he departed in April 2015 after the season 11 finale, Patrick Dempsey and Pompeo were the two stars of the show. His exit “was a defining moment, deal-wise,” Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter.

“They could always use him as leverage against me — ‘We don’t need you; we have Patrick’ — which they did for years,” she said. “I don’t know if they also did that to him, because he and I never discussed our deals. There were many times where I reached out about joining together to negotiate, but he was never interested in that.”

At one point, Pompeo asked for $5,000 more than him “just on principle” since the show had her character’s name in the title, but she was denied. Though she considered stepping back at the time, she chose not to, figuring, “I’m not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.”

Pompeo added, however, that she had a “nice chuckle” about the “ratings spike” following Dempsey’s exit.

The actress and producer later opened up on Call Her Daddy about the disparity between her and Dempsey’s paychecks from the get-go. “Nothing personal to him, just in general, only a man can have 13 failed TV pilots and their quote keeps going up, right? But in all fairness, his quote was what it was,” she said.

That being said, she didn’t believe he didn’t deserve what he earned — she just thought she deserved just as much.

“I was the namesake of the show, I deserved the same and that was harder to get,” Pompeo admitted. “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.”

What are Ellen Pompeo’s other businesses?

In addition to acting, Pompeo has been building her directing and producing résumé, primarily with the launch of her own production company, Calamity Jane, in 2011.

As part of her 2018 deal, Pompeo was guaranteed office space for the company on Disney’s lot, as well as pilot commitments.

The actress’ latest project, Good Am