Three years ago, Hollywood was shocked when Shonda Rhimes announced that she was leaving ABC for Netflix. Now, she is talking to The Hollywood Reporter, and she told them why she left such a lucrative deal.
Rhimes produced some of ABC’s most talked-about shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, but she was frustrated with the behind the scenes BS coming from the network. They wanted to limit her budget on the dramas. She didn’t like the changes they wanted to make to her scripts. She was tired of the battles.
Then it came time to negotiate a new deal. Her lawyers were going back and forth, and she knew there was going to be a breaking point. She just never expected it to be what it turned out to be.
She had an all-inclusive pass to Disneyland for herself and her nanny. During one outing, she wanted a pass for his sister so that she could watch her teenager while the nanny watched Rhimes’ two other little ones. She thought it was handled until she got to the park. That is when she found out there was no pass for her sister.
Rhimes picked up her phone, called an executive, and asked if he could help her out. She says he told her, “Don’t you have enough?”
That was when she had enough of ABC, called her lawyer, and told him to get her deal at Netflix. The rest is Hollywood history.
