'Grey's Anatomy': Shonda Rhimes on Why She Had to Kill Off McDreamy

Fans were stunned last season when “Grey's Anatomy” killed off Dr. Derek Shepherd aka McDreamy, but show creator Shonda Rhimes says it could not have gone down any other way.

Eonline.com posted an exclusive bonus clip from the Season 11 DVD, featuring Shonda's explanation for why Derek (played by Patrick Dempsey) had to die.

“When I sat down to try and figure out how we were going to exit this character from the show, it started to be really difficult because I thought, 'Do we send him off on a trip that he never comes back from? Do they get a divorce? Does their marriage breakup?' I thought, 'He can't. We adore this man, and we adore this marriage and this love.'”

She continued, “If he leaves his wife, willingly walks away from his wife and his kids, and never comes back, that's basically like saying the love that they had is a lie. It didn't exist. He is not the man we thought he was and I could not have that. For me, that was worse than almost anything.”