Isaiah Washington has opened up about his departure from Grey’s Anatomy .
The 50-year-old was fired from the series after he used a homophobic slur during an argument on set in October 2006. Washington allegedly used the word in reference to co-star T.R. Knight while arguing with Patrick Dempsey. Shortly after the argument went public, Knight came out as a gay.
Washington repeated the word backstage at the Golden Globes in January 2007, saying that he “never called T.R. a f****t.” Knight said “everybody heard” Washington use the word.
Washington said that “everything just fell apart” after he was dropped from Grey’s Anatomy .
“After the incident at the Golden Globes, everything just fell apart. Everything literally stopped. Whatever the agenda, whatever the plan was, it worked. I lost everything,” Washington told HuffPost Live . “I couldn’t afford to have an agent. I couldn’t afford to have a publicist for crisis management to continue [acting]. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I had a wife and three kids.”
Washington added:
“I’m giving it to you straight. I could not afford to continue. I went from $2 million a year to residual checks, zero. I couldn’t even get another apartment after I turned in my lease for my $3 million home. I had to put it in my wife’s name. No one wanted to touch the name of Isaiah Washington for three years.”
Washington said he went “underground” and became a “better husband, a better father, and then a better artist” after the incident. He said Facebook helped him make new connections.
“I just said, ‘God, release me of this dynamic – you know my truth, you know my hurt, but there’s nothing I can do about it, I simply do not have the money or the power to compete with a behemoth of a media that has already tried and convicted me even though I’m saying this is not the truth,’” he said.
Isaiah Washington stars in Blue Caprice , based on the true story of the DC snipers. The film opened in theaters Friday, September 13.
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