Billboard Women in Music 2025
Ellen Pompeo appeared on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” and reminisced about her relationship with Taylor Swift. The music icon famously named one of her cats after Pompeo’s “Grey’s Anatomy” character Meredith Grey. Pompeo then appeared in Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video alongside a bevy of A-list stars. The actor said Swift once wrote her a “big old check” for charity just from a simple ask.
“At the time, [husband Chris Ivery] and I, we do a lot of volunteering for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles here,” Pompeo said. “They have an amazing program at Children’s where they make music for the babies in the NICU. For the parents who have to go to work all day and they can’t be with the kids, they record their voices singing nursery rhymes or telling them stories and they play it for the babies in the day when the parents can’t be there. The babies respond to it and it makes their outcomes more positive.”
“It’s a really nice program , but they need money to run it,” Pompeo added. “I asked Taylor, ‘Could you write me a big old check for Children’s?’ and she knew me all but 20 minutes and that girl wrote me the biggest check without blinking an eye.”
Pompeo told Hudson that she only spent “an hour or two” on the set of Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video, where she filmed a scene with “Law & Order: SVU” favorite Mariska Hargitay. Swift owned another cat named after Hargitay’s television character, Olivia Benson. Pompeo said filming the music video “was the easiest thing.”
Pompeo has been making the press rounds in support of her Hulu television drama “Good American Family.” Watch her full interview on the Jennifer Hudson show in the video below.