She may have a show called 'Scandal', but Shonda Rhimes doesn't put up with on-set drama.
She may have a show called Scandal, but Shonda Rhimes doesn't put up with any more on-set drama after what went down with the cast of Grey's Anatomy.
"It's not for nothing that I have a show [Scandal] that's about a professional crisis manager," the acclaimed showrunner told The Hollywood Reporter when recalling the earlier days of running Grey's Anatomy. "I learned a lot of stuff."
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In the beginning seasons of Grey's, the drama between the cast off-screen was being discussed around the water cooler as much as the show's story lines themselves. It started when news spread that Isaiah Washington had called T.R. Knight a homophobic slur. Then, at the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, Washington repeated the slur to cameras when attempting to clear his name. He was fired from the show June of that year.
Katherine Heigl kept the cast in the headlines when she announced that she would be withdrawing her name from the 2008 Emmy ballot because she didn't feel that the writers had given her the content to "warrant an Emmy nomination." She managed to stay with the show for a few more seasons before exiting in 2010.
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Needless to say, it was a tough time for Rhimes, a time that she's doesn't plan on repeating. "There are no Heigls in this situation," she told THR of her Scandal cast, which includes Kerry Washington, Bellamy Young, Scott Foley and Tony Goldwyn. "I don't put up with bullsh** or nasty people. I don't have time for it."
Rhimes added that though the show is "always behind," she has a strict "no a**holes policy" that keeps Scandal on track.
While Rhimes has moved on from the Grey's drama-- her new show How to Get Away with Murder premiered this Fall -- Heigl is planning her return to TV. The actress will play CIA officer Charlie Tucker in State of Affairs on NBC come November. This, of course, is not a Shondaland production.
Rhimes may say there isn't drama on the Scandal set, but one of the stars of the show admitted that she doesn't like kissing her co-stars. Check out the confession, below: