Katherine Heigl's Least Favorite Grey's Anatomy Scene Of All Time

It's been over a decade since Katherine Heigl left "Grey's Anatomy," but even after such a long time, it's the television show that she's arguably most known for. Heigl played Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens from the start of the medical drama in 2005, though she left by the middle of Season 6. Before she was written off the show (more on that later) Izzie went through quite a lot; she was a part of a number of "Grey's Anatomy's" most heartbreaking moments. She got romantically involved with a couple of her fellow surgical residents, she fell in love with Denny — a patient whose heart was failing — and tried to get him a new heart through some shady means, and she was diagnosed and treated for cancer. It was those last two storylines combined that led to Heigl's least favorite "Grey's Anatomy" scene of all time.

Heigl spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her time on the show, and she said that "my least favorite scene was when Izzie and Alex get intimate with Denny the ghost in the room. That was like, 'Oh, man.' And I really thought it was going to feel different when it actually played on camera. But, oh, man, that was weird." And as weird as it was for her to film, it was for sure a bit weird for the audience! But as little as Heigl liked that scene, it was definitely a part of one of "Grey's Anatomy's" most memorable storylines. 

If you've watched "Grey's Anatomy," you'll definitely remember the storyline between Katherine Heigl's character Izzie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character Denny Duquette. Denny dies during the season 2 finale after a lot of drama, but he comes back as a ghost/hallucination in season 5 that only Izzie can see. Seeing Denny turns out to be one of the symptoms of her cancer, but before she discovers the reason for the hallucination, she gets intimate with him. Kind of a lot. But all the while, Izzie is dating non-ghost Alex Karev, played by Justin Chambers. During a hook-up between Izzie and Alex in the hospital's on-call room, Denny is there too.

Heigl brought up the awkwardness of the scene as she spoke with Ellen Pompeo, who plays Meredith Grey, on "Actors on Actors." Heigl spoke about how stressful and weird it would be to watch certain scenes from "Grey's Anatomy" with her daughters — Heigl has two daughters and a son — noting that it'd be hard to explain that scene between Izzie, Alex, and Denny.

Before the storyline with Denny the ghost and cancer, Heigl won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for portraying Izzie Stevens in season 3. She later told Entertainment Weekly that the win was "the highlight of my career." But by the next season, Heigl was making Emmy news for a much different reason. 

In 2008, Katherine Heigl removed her name from Emmy consideration, saying "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," via The New York Times. Heigl later said that she wished she'd chosen her words better, particularly considering how it made the writers on the show feel, and apologized to show creator Shonda Rhimes. But two seasons later, Heigl was off the show, after talking with Rhimes to get her let out of her contract 18 months early. 

Heigl's exit from "Grey's Anatomy" left her wondering if she was a bad person, and it left her with a reputation in Hollywood for being difficult and a diva. But it sounds like leaving "Grey's" was inevitable for her at the time. During an interview on Radio Andy, Heigl talked about why she couldn't do anything but leave: "It was breaking me. And when I was young, I didn't know how to get through it [...] with less heightened anxiety." Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, Heigl said, "I wish I had just calmed down a moment, taken a breath, thought it through [...] I just kind of fled in a panic." All in all, it sounds like Heigl has come a long way since her time on "Grey's Anatomy."