‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Ellen Pompeo Says No to Botox
Remember Ellen Pompeo as Will Ferrell’s frustrated love interest in the rowdy comedy Old School? Somehow, since Ferrell went streaking through that quad in 2003, she hasn’t aged. Her secret? There isn’t one. Pompeo says she is careful about what she puts into her body, and the results speak for themselves.
“I work out every day. I get 40 minutes of cardio in every single day. For your skin you need that,” she tells Yahoo Style. “I eat really clean. I’ve been on a quest to eliminate animal products from my diet. I’m 80-20.”
As for fillers or injectables, which render the visages of so many of her peers oddly immobile, she says, “I don’t do Botox. I don’t have anything in my face.”
Get ready to see more of Pompeo on Thursday, when Season 13 of Grey’s Anatomy returns. On the show, she is widowed mom Dr. Meredith Grey, sharing her house with her half-sister, Maggie. When the show last aired, the emotionally jarring episode dealt with the aftermath of a collapsed building and all the victims who didn’t make it — and the cliffhanger of whether Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) would stand trial for assault or take a plea deal, with Meredith pushing for him to go to court.
And that’s about all we know.
“If you’re assuming we know what’s going on, that’s your first mistake,” says Pompeo, 47, referring to the actors in the show. “It’s a big transitional moment for all the characters. Alex got in trouble. We’ll probably see him try to work his way back in now and deal with the aftermath of his punishment. Hopefully he’ll come to some resolve with Jo [Camilla Luddington].”
As for Meredith, Pompeo is loath to say whether she’s matured or not — this is, after all, a woman so leery of commitment that she and her dead husband (Patrick Dempsey) wrote their vows on Post-it notes. “It’s really hard to talk about it when I’m in the middle of it. There’s a lot of back and forth. We don’t see any evolution with Meredith until the very end. Right now it feels like I’m in the same beat as I was,” she says.
Headlining the hit show for 13 seasons has turned Pompeo into something of a medical geek. “I am very interested and I’m always asking a million questions. … Cloning, science, it’s really techy and wild. All parts of it. It’s dark and scary. I’m always curious about people’s experiences,” she says, asking this reporter about her family’s health history in a way that’s endearing, not invasive.
There is another parallel between Pompeo and her character: Both have a trio of kids at home. Pompeo has a full house with husband Chris Ivery: daughters Stella Luna and Sienna, ages 7 and 3, and newborn son Eli Christopher, whom she debuted on Instagram in a heart-melting post. “Chris [now] has one more boy in the house,” she says. “He was completely overrun with women. It’s just more joy. They’re all adorable and happy and healthy kids. It makes life a little more entertaining.”
As for doing it all: Please, don’t get her started. Pompeo doesn’t bother with the pretense that as some kind of celebrity superwoman, she cleans and cooks and changes every diaper herself. “I have a lot of help,” she refreshingly admits. “My husband does the morning school run. We have a total system in place. I have two housekeepers three days a week. I have a baby nurse for the infant. It takes a village.”
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