A lot of people get sacked every day, there's nothing unusual about that, but you have to hand it to Isaiah Washington – not only did he get the sack for roaring a homophobic slur at the top of his voice, but he also refuses to shut up about it.
Isaiah Washington's lengthy post-Grey's Anatomy Grand Tour Of Fury took another stop-off to speak to Larry King on Monday night, so Isaiah Washington could put his side of the argument across in even more excruciating detail than ever before. And while it may seem like Isaiah Washington is determined not to move on from his Grey's Anatomy sacking with even a shred of dignity left to his name to his name, remember that Isaiah Washington is the spokesperson for the betrayed, and it's his job to be angry. Admittedly the key group of the betrayed that Isaiah Washington speaks for are people who don't understand why screaming the word "faggot" at the top of their lungs during a fight got them sacked, but it's a start.
Who'd have thought that the Grey's Anatomy set was such a hotbed of disquiet? To actually watch Grey's Anatomy you'd assume that the entire cast were hooked on some sort of drug that stopped them from realising what an awful lot of boring arsetittery they were starring in, but behind the scenes the Grey's Anatomy set is really like a more violent version of the John Rambo trailer.
You'll remember the Grey's Anatomy actor-fight last year, of course, and the entire painful nine-month fallout from it, where Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey had a fight and then Isaiah Washington called TR Knight a "faggot" and then TR Knight came out as gay and Isaiah Washington went to gay rehab and ended up making a bunch of gay adverts. Remember that? We might have mentioned it a few times.
Anyway, none of this could stop Isaiah Washington getting sacked from Grey's Anatomy for his outburst, and Isaiah has been on the warpath ever since. As well as his confusing "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more" statement, Isaiah Washington said how sad he was to be sacked, before yakking to a newspaper that he wanted TR Knight to get fired – and on Monday night Isaiah took his fight to television, appearing on Larry King Live, since discussing non-important celebrity rubbish seems to be Larry's thing at the moment.
And in his Larry King interview, Isaiah Washington restated his side of the story – that, yes, Isaiah Washington did say the word "faggot" but to Patrick Dempsey and not TR Knight, who claimed the word was used against him to give him a more prominent role on Grey's Anatomy. Isaiah Washington also said that he didn't mean "faggot" as in "homosexual" but "faggot" as in "weak". Similarly, Mel Gibson screaming "sugartits" at a female policewomen wasn't a sexist slur; he actually did think that her tits were made out of sugar. MSNBC reports Washington's take on the initial Grey's Anatomy blow-up:
Washington defended his actions during an appearance on CNN's “Larry King Live” on Monday night, blaming co-star Patrick Dempsey's repeated tardiness to the set for the blowup that eventually ended with Washington using a homophobic slur. “(Dempsey) became unhinged, face-to-face, spittle to spittle, in my face. I'm asking him, ‘Why are you screaming at me?’ He became irate. By that time I pushed him out of my face and I began to say, ‘There's no way you're going treat me like a ‘b word,’ a ‘p word,’ or a ‘f word’ in front of our crew,” Washington told Larry King. “I wish I had said, ‘You're not going to treat me like a ‘n-word’ because that's how I felt.”
Perhaps that's it from Isaiah Washington now. Perhaps he's finally exorcised all the bitterness inside him and can start putting his unfortunate Grey's Anatomy experience behind him. The big question now is where Isaiah goes from here. It was hard enough to imagine Isaiah Washington getting much acting work back when everyone just thought he was an angry, petty man with a penchant for hollering homophobic slurs, but now that his co-stars aren't even allowed to treat him like a ‘b word,’ a ‘p word,’ or a ‘f word’ it's harder than ever. Maybe Isaiah shouldn't have been such a 'c word' in the first place, perhaps.
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Joe says
Please, the whole situation is stupid. TR Knight was not even in the room and was not being refered to when Washington said what he said. So for TR Knight to go on the Ellen Degeneres show and other interviews and claim to having been called something he never was was shows that he is a liar and a coward. No one outed him, he decided to out himself. ABC and Disney instead of telling what really happened decided to fire Washington to avoid the possible financial reprecussions of not doing so. The truth was not what they were concerned about. Firing him was at the very least excessive.Plus he apologized, went into counseling and did everything else they asked him to do. This is nothing but politcal correctness and fear of not being politcally correct run amuk. I don’t think it was really racially motivated. Especially since the same thing happened to Don Imus