Staff Writer
It’s been a long while since we saw Isaiah Washington on primetime television…
The actor was fired from his role as Dr Preston Burke on the hit show, Grey’s Anatomy back in 2007 after he allegedly used a homophobic slur during an argument on set and then repeated it on camera at the Golden Globes.
“After the incident at the Golden Globes, everything just fell apart,” he informed HuffPost Live. “Everything literally stopped… Whatever the agenda, whatever the plan was, it worked. I lost everything. I couldn’t afford to have an agent. I couldn’t afford to have a publicist for crisis management to continue [acting]. It’s not that I didn’t want to. I had a wife and three kids.”
Washington continued: “I’m giving it to you straight. I could not afford to continue. I went from $2m a year to residual cheques, zero. I couldn’t even get another apartment after I turned in my lease for my $3m home. I had to put it in my wife’s name. No-one wanted to touch the name of Isaiah Washington for three years.”
The former star revealed that he had to go “underground”, become a “better husband, a better father and then a better artist”, before he could try to revive his flailing career in Hollywood. Washington also stated that he used Facebook to make new professional connections after he lost his agent.
“I just said, ‘God, release me of this dynamic – you know my truth, you know my hurt, but there’s nothing I can do about it, I simply do not have the money or the power to compete with a behemoth of a media that has already tried and convicted me even though I’m saying this is not the truth’.”
“I will continue to say that. I blew it at the Golden Globes; it didn’t happen like that in October in the argument between me and Patrick Dempsey. End of story… But what people don’t know is it didn’t stop. The persecution continued. And that’s when I started to withdraw.”
Washington also lamented that casting directors claimed they could not see enough “remorse” from him, while he was also fighting off invitations from “bigots”.
“I got bigots coming at me inviting me to parties like, ‘Yeah, yeah, down with the gays’,” he stated. “I’m like, ‘No, down with you!’ I’m fighting bigots on one hand and then fighting people who actually think I’m a monster on the other hand.”
Isaiah Washington is currently promoting his upcoming movie, Blue Caprice, and will appear on the CW’s latest drama, The 100. His six year break from acting certainly wasn’t a vacation as he claims he “didn’t have a choice” after his alleged homophobia swept the media by storm.
Regardless of what actually went down back in ’07, one thing’s for sure – we certainly don’t want to get on the wrong side of Grey’s showrunner, Shonda Rhimes.
Blue Caprice will open in select US cinemas, September 17.
Grey’s Anatomy Season 10 begins September 26th with an epic two hour premiere that will change everything.
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