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Shonda Rhimes Says It Was Painful Killing McDreamy On ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

By Amy Feinstein
Published on: 07:24 PST, Aug 5, 2015

Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, is talking about how difficult it was to kill off Dr. Derek Shepherd, or McDreamy, as he is better known. She explains that it was painful to write the storyline that ended the love story of Meredith and Derek.

As reported in the Inquisitr, Ellen Pompeo, or the title character, Dr. Meredith Grey, is putting her time with Patrick Dempsey behind her, and is looking forward to working with a cast of “hunks,” including Martin Henderson, who is rumored to be Meredith’s new love interest.

Rhymes says it “wasn’t easy or fun” to kill off Patrick Dempsey’s character on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Dempsey played a neurosurgeon that was with the cast from the beginning. Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, says she was faced with the impossible choice of killing McDreamy, or having him leave Meredith and “tainting” their love story.

“The only way to preserve what felt true to me was that Derek was gonna have to die,” she said. “So many people lose their spouses in a myriad of different ways and feel they can’t get up again and to tell the story of how life goes on after… that’s a story worth telling.”

Rhimes told the New York Daily News that she never wanted fans to think that the eleven years as a core relationship was a lie.

“That would suggest that love was not true, the thing we had said for 11 years was a lie and McDreamy wasn’t McDreamy. For me, that was untenable,” she explained.

Many fans of Grey’s Anatomy were shocked and devastated by the sudden death of Dr. Derek Shepherd, even creating a petition to bring the character back. Former Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl was particularly shocked by Dempsey’s exit.

“I just can’t imagine the show without McDreamy. It’s just so hard to picture.”

But if fans wanted to start a petition when Patrick Dempsey left Grey’s Anatomy, they might storm the studio if Shandy Rhimes kills off Ellen Pompeo‘s Dr. Meredith Grey.

As reported earlier in the Inquisitr, Ellen Pompeo has yet to renew her contract with Grey’s Anatomy, so the plot needs to be written for the exit of the title character, Dr. Meredith Grey. Thoughts are that this will be the time that Rhimes exploits the Alzheimer’s Disease that has been haunting Meredith Grey since the diagnosis of her mother, the infamous Dr. Ellis Grey.

Shonda Rhimes has her work cut out for her this season on Grey’s Anatomy.

Do you think Shonda Rhimes made the right decision killing off Derek on Grey’s Anatomy?

[Photo courtesy of Kevin Winter / Getty Images]

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