How Ellen Pompeo Is Supporting Teachers, Plus: She Talks ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Reunions

First, “Grey’s Anatomy” dropped the Meredith Grey and Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd reunion. Then, they brought back T.R. Knight for a surprise George O’Malley cameo. Now, Ellen Pompeo is opening up to “Extra’s” Rachel Lindsay about the show, and partnering with Pandora jewelry to support teachers during the pandemic.

Dishing on “Grey’s,” Ellen, who plays Meredith, said, “Listen, anything we can do to lift people's spirits and come together… I really feel like the message on our show is one of supporting each other and lifting people up and acceptance and understanding. So, if we can mirror that on the inside, on the show, behind the scenes, and walk the walk and talk the talk with what we're telling people and the stories we're telling, if we can do that as actors and producers and come together the way we need people to do in real life, then I feel like we're winning.”

She’s not winning, however, at the whole homeschooling thing during the pandemic, “I'm not very good at it… I don't have a tremendous amount of patience. I certainly can't do fifth-grade math… When we sit down to dinner every night and I ask the kids about their day, to see their faces light up, ‘The teacher called on me and I knew the answer,’ you know, I think we can all agree that teachers are a very big part of our lives. We always remember what teachers said to us when we were young, and now as a mom, seeing the way my kids’ faces light up when they talk about their teachers, we really do need to support teachers and lift them up in any way we can.”

She’s helping to do just that, saying, “We love teachers so much and we're dependent on them so much, especially now, and so Pandora North America wanted to team up and celebrate the teachers, so we came down here to South Central Los Angeles to gift a teacher with some jewelry, a big beautiful bag of jewelry.” Adding, “They also made a beautiful $25,000 donation to… Children's Institute, which is the school she works at.”