Shonda Rhimes Ended 15-Year Relationship With ABC Over Disneyland Pass

Shonda Rhimes spent the last 15 years building Shonda Land led by Grey’s Anatomy. She went on to create shows that were centered around Black women like Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder.

But still, the creative genius felt like she was “dying” at ABC before she exited to take her talents to Netflix in 2017. She felt “like, I’d been pushing the same ball up the same hill in the exact same way for a really long time.”

But the straw that broke the camel’s back was a trip to Disneyland three years ago. As apart of her plan, Shonda has two all-inclusive passes to the amusement park. However, they’re not interchangeable so Rhimes needed another one for her sister to take her daughter to the park and was told “We don’t do this,” multiple times.

Rhimes was ultimately granted the second pass after hesitance, but it didn’t work when her sister and daughter arrived to the park. So she called a “high-ranking executive,” who allegedly asked her, “Don’t you have enough?”

With that being said, the producer called her lawyer to connect her with Netflix for a $150 million deal, and that was the end of a dynasty. “The first thing I said was, ‘You’re not going to get another Grey’s Anatomy — not Grey’s Anatomy in a cornfield, Grey’s Anatomy on a baseball field or Grey’s Anatomy at an airport. That’s just not happening,’” she recalled. “He said, ‘I’d never expect it to.’”

Shonda Rhimes continued: “I said, ‘I just want to be in a place where I can make stuff and no one’s going to bother me or make me feel like I’m beholden,’ and he was like, ‘That sounds great to me.’”