We’ve reached the end of another week. But before we clock out for the weekend, we’re giving credit where it’s due. Ellen Pompeo is the latest champion in our Winner of the Week series.

When we first meet Meredith Grey, she’s a talented doctor on the rise in her surgical residency, as well as the thoughtful narrator of Grey’s Anatomy. She’s also still down bad enough to cry “pick me, choose me” at a married man. Thankfully, she matures and grows over the 20-plus seasons of the show. But that evolution is nothing, nothing, compared to the real-life wisdom of Ellen Pompeo, who has been so open and so forthright (RIP her Twitter) in her pursuit of money, power, and respect, you could create a guide to life from her interviews alone.

So we did.

As her quotes, both new and old, go viral amid her press tour for Good American Family, we spent the week collecting the Best of Pompeo. Step aside, Mer. Ellen’s is the voice we want in our heads guiding our decisions, soundtrack by The Fray optional…

“WHO GIVES A FUCK?” about being “perfect”

Men don’t! During her 2018 chat with InStyle, Pompeo went all the way off about the double standard applied to successful men and women, and when the outlet posted her mini-rant in March 2025, it went viral for obvious reasons: it strikes every damn chord.

“Own your shit! And be grateful!” she said in the same chat.

Lessons from Shonda and Debbie

On Grey’s, Pompeo works with series creator Shonda Rhimes and the legendary actor Debbie Allen. Appearing on The View, she shared the lessons both women have imparted to her, revealing, “Shonda taught me that closed mouths don’t get fed…and all anyone can say is no; Debbie taught me the most extraordinary thing that I use in my life every single day, which is: be still.”

Motherhood as magic

We’ve all heard the “moms are superheroes” shtick that puts mothers on a pedestal without offering real support, but the way Pompeo put the experience of being a working mother on Call Her Daddy had our jaws on the floor. She noted that her boss, Shonda Rhimes, is “a big family person” who supports mothers who work, and added that while this should be the norm in every workplace and industry, sadly it’s not. After host Alex Cooper expressed trepidation over starting a family while having a career, noting that some have advised her against having kids soon, Pompeo said: