When there were calls for Washington to be fired in early 2007 and the names of other African-American actors were being floated, Rhimes thought it racist to suggest that one black actor could be replaced with another. And yet, she herself recast the role of an African-American woman on "Private Practice" with Audra MacDonald.
"Preston Burke was a character that audiences had come to know and love over three seasons and was really sort of well known. I think it's very different." She said the talk of recasting the role gave the impression that "the only thing important about Preston Burke was his race, like he could be replaced by anybody. That was disturbing to me."
She was asked if she understood that people felt she was trying to turn a homophobic incident into a racial incident.
"I understand it now. But I think at that moment of discussion about that was disturbing, as disturbing as the entire incident."
Does she wish she had spoken out sooner?
"Here's the thing. I know for you guys it was incredibly frustrating that I didn't say something and I'm kind of sorry because I know [the media] had stories to tell. For me, the story I had to tell was the story of the show and my instinct when solmething like this happens is to sort of close the doors and hunker down with the people that are my family and protect tham as much as possible. The outside world became far less important to me than those people that I work with every day.I wasn't worried about the outide world. The outside world isn't something I can control but the people I work with every day were and I really was spending my time dealing with that, not dealing with whether or not I should make a statement. There were a lot of things that had to be done."