Isaiah Washington Really Committed To This Whole Career Annihilation Thing
Grey's Anatomy casualty Isaiah Washington certainly hasn't been keeping quiet about his unceremonious shitcanning from the ABC series, having repeatedly broken his silence on the subject, clarified his silence-breaking, and further appended those clarifications to any news outlet still interested in listening. Until now, the target of his fury was gay mastermind T.R. Knight, whom he had accused of single-handedly orchestrating one of the most ingenious behind-the-scenes power plays in recent, horny-doctor-drama history. In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, however, Washington reveals how nothing in this workplace disaster was what it seemed:
Washington now says that his "homophobia reprogramming" wasn't exactly what it seemed. "There is no rehab for homophobia—that was just some crap being put out by the network," he says. " I went into an executive counseling program which many people in this industry know about and go to. They knew what the program was but chose to call it what they wanted to fit their agenda. [...]
"Well, it didn't help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn't a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn't speak like I'd just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime," he says.
"I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that 'some people' were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I'm a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn't go around saying 'Yessah, massa sir' and 'No sir, massa' to everyone?"
Washington's latest revelation is indeed a stunner—that gayhab was just a hoax all along, perpetrated by the network on an unsuspecting public fooled into thinking active steps were being taken towards rehabilitation through a rigorous program of forced Teletubbies viewing marathons and showtune sing-alongs. In the end, however, it would seem no amount of P.R. hoop-jumping would have been enough for the beleaguered actor to save his job, as his stubborn refusal to address his co-workers in a slave-era dialect would forever prevent him from fully being assimilated into the Grey's family.
