Former Grey's Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington gets the boot!
Just because you're rich and famous one day doesn't mean that you can be down on the seat of your pants the next. Just ask Bernie Madoff. Or you could ask Isaiah Washginton - if you had the nerve the paparazzi in the video does. Only short months ago Isaiah was flying high as a cast member on TV's No 1 show - Young Doctors In Love. Actually it's called Grey's Anatomy, but all these medical shows follow the same basic soap opera format. They follow the same format because it's a successful format, & successful Grey's was. So what went wrong for Washington?Well there was friction the set. The usual playground politics. Factions started to form, and that lead to friction. Friction leads to occasional flare ups. The flare up that cost Isaiah his job was when he got into a snit with Patrick Dempsey - Dr McSteamy, on the set. Words were exchanged. Particularly Washington told McSteamy that "I'm not your little faggot, like him" pointing to cast mate TR Knight.
Now in these politically correct times that's enough to get you in hot water over your head.The fact that a reporter from the National Enquirer was visiting the set that day didn't help. Washington felt it would be better to come clean and make a public statement, for the sake of his image and credibility. Better the adoring fans heard to from him, rather than read about it in the tabs. Trouble was that the reporter says he had no intention of printing the story. So much for credibility - back to "never admit anything, especially when you're caught"!
Well with hardened show business veterans like Ellen DeGeneres bursting into to tears on national TV - not to mention the impact such statements might have had on Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson's strained relationship - the situation was getting critical. It didn't help that Katherine Heigl was opening up her yap to that tabs on Knight behalf, and at every available opportunity. Something had to be done. Something turned out to be an indefinite leave of absence for the disgraced actor. Assurances were given that he might be brought back once things cooled off.
Perhaps with that in mind Washington got sent off to hate camp. Actually it was some sort of sensitivity training - you know, the kind where tolerance and the right ideas are bullied into people. Though Isaiah passed his anger management with flying colours, America wasn't finished being angry with him. So he found himself unemployable. With a $20 000 a month pad and a real estate market that was circling the drain, you don't need a chartered accountant to see that things were adding up to trouble.
Isaiah is still waiting for things to cool off. They still seem pretty hot by the way that reporter is tailing him. It takes a lot of nerve to ask questions like "How does it feel to be broke big shot?" To give Isaiah credit he held his cool marvellously. They anger management courses must work. Too bad they don't pay off. As for his old cast mates on Grey's, well that show is still racked with internal intrigue beyond a series of Survivor. In fact it look's like Heigl is gonna be the next one voted off, by way of an inoperable brain tumour! Shonda Rhimes can play rough when she wants too!
