Katherine Heigl Regrets Making This "Snarky" Statement About Grey's Anatomy

Katherine Heigl’s personal history with Grey’s Anatomy may even be more dramatic than the show itself. The actor had an infamously prickly relationship with the series before exiting after Season 6, and one of the most public scandals came in 2008 when she withdrew herself from Emmys consideration for her work on the show. Now, 16 years later, Heigl is clearing up the rumor that she refused a nomination, and sharing her regrets over how she handled that situation.

During her appearance on Shannen Doherty’s Let’s Be Clear podcast, Heigl corrected Doherty when she mentioned Heigl turning down an Emmy nom. “Well, I didn’t, and everybody keeps saying that,” Heigl said. “I didn’t turn it down.”

Rather, Heigl chose not to put herself in the running at all, so she never even got a nomination to turn down. “You know, you have to submit yourself. You have to submit your work, and then they deliberate and then they decide if they want to give you a nomination,” Heigl said. “I just didn’t submit my work that year.”

The decision came as a surprise at the time, since Heigl had just won the Best Supporting Actress trophy the year prior. But when the 2008 Emmys came around, Heigl shocked the academy by releasing a public statement withdrawing herself from consideration. The statement read: “I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention.”

Heigl admitted she now regrets making that statement. “I should have said, ‘Oh, I forgot,’ because it created such a maelstrom that was so unnecessary,” she said. “I was kind of trying to make a bit of a snarky point about my material that year, but I was also just not feeling my material. I didn’t think I had anything that warranted even the consideration for a nomination. I just wasn’t proud of my work.”

She added that if she had gotten a nomination that year, she would have accepted it. But she just didn’t think she deserved one. “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,” Heigl said. “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. I wasn’t trying to be a d*ck.”