How Old Was Ellen Pompeo When She Started Grey’s Anatomy: Who is Ellen Pompeo Husband?

By Sirjan Chetri Last updated Dec 14, 2022

Grey’s Anatomy is currently on hiatus before returning to ABC for the rest of season 17. Meredith Grey has been played by Ellen Pompeo since the first episode of the show.

Some fans, however, are curious about the actress’s age and how her career began.

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Who is Ellen Pompeo?

Ellen Kathleen Pompeo is an actress from America. She is best known for her role as Dr Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy. Since 2017, she has appeared on multiple year-end Forbes lists as one of the highest-paid actors in the world.

Her honours include a Screen Actors Guild Award and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. 10 November 1969, in Everett, Massachusetts, Pompeo was born.

Her father was of Italian, English, and Irish descent; he was born in Gesualdo, Italy. Her mother was of Irish descent. She grew up as a Catholic.

At the age of four, her mother died of an accidental painkiller overdose. Soon after, her father remarried; he died on September 1, 2012. In 2006, Pompeo stated, “I believe my mother’s death at such a young age, at age 39, made me appreciate life so much.”

There are five older siblings in her family, three sisters and two brothers. She was also referred to as “the pencil” and “stracciatella” (gelato flavour).

In Miami, she worked as a bartender when she began dating her then-boyfriend. In 1995, the couple relocated to New York City, where she was recruited by a casting director to appear in advertisements for Citibank and L’Oréal.

How Old Was Ellen Pompeo When She Started Grey’s Anatomy?

She was born on November 10, 1969, which means that she is currently 51 years old. The Massachusetts city of Everett is where the actress was born, and she is one of five children, with three older sisters and two older brothers.

After she had more life experience, she moved to Miami and began working as a bartender there before making the move to New York City. In 1995, a casting director approached her with the possibility of appearing in some advertisements, which led to the beginning of her career in the entertainment industry.

Ellen Kathleen Pompeo first appearance on television was in a guest-starring role in the 1996 season of the NBC drama Law & Order. After this, Pompeo appeared in a few supporting roles on the television shows Friends and Strong Medicine before landing the main role in the film Moonlight Mile.

Catch Me If You Can, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Daredevil were among the actor’s other film roles. In 2005, Pompeo competed for and ultimately won the role of the lead character in the medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

Since then, she has starred in the show. The actress was 33 years old at the beginning of the first season of Grey’s Anatomy when the show first aired.

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Pompeo has previously discussed how strange it is to see herself ageing on screen. She said that it makes her feel older. In August 2020, she discussed her plans for how much longer she intends to host the show with Dax Shepherd on his podcast, Armchair Expert.

Who is Ellen Pompeo Husband?

In 2003, Pompeo and Chris Ivery first connected at a Los Angeles supermarket. After six months of friendship, they started dating, and in 2007, they were legally wed in front of Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City.

They are parents to a son and two daughters. Pompeo slammed media reports that implied she had an eating disorder, accusing them of being irresponsible for spreading such rumours.

She expressed concern for the young girls who look up to her in a 2007 issue of Los Angeles Confidential Magazine, saying, “I don’t want them to think I starve myself or don’t eat, and that’s what they have to do to be like me.”

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A 2016 US election ad campaign supporting Hillary Clinton featured Pompeo alongside Shonda Rhimes, the stars of Rhimes’ ABC Thursday lineup shows How to Get Away With Murder and Scandal, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis.

The ad compared Clinton to the main characters of those shows. The actresses call Meredith Grey, Olivia Pope, and Annalise Keating “brilliant” and “complex” women who fight for justice and give voice to the voiceless in the video.

Each of the four candidates for president—Rhimes, Davis, Pompeo, and Washington—takes a turn praising the other before concluding, “Our characters are on television; the real world has Hillary Clinton.”

Clinton tweeted in response to the video, “Describe your power lineup. I appreciate having you on this team.”