Though Washington’s initial apology over his language quelled the backlash, he went on to joke about the incident a few months later at the Golden Globe awards, and the renewed conversations about it eventually led ABC execs to decline renewing the actor’s contract beyond Season 3.
More to the point here, those Golden Globe comments inspired Katherine Heigl to say in an interview that Isaiah Washington “needs to just not speak in public, period.”
For those who might not remember the details, Isaiah Washington portrayed surgeon Dr. Preston Burke for the first three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
In October 2006, reports sprang up saying Washington was in an argument with co-star Patrick Dempsey and used a homophobic slur in reference to then-star T.R. Knight, who publicly came out in the aftermath.