Ellen Pompeo Bids Farewell to Grey's Anatomy Costars Sarah Drew and Jessica Capshaw
It’s the end of another era at Shondaland.
Ellen Pompeo bid adieu to two of her costars, Jessica Capshaw and Sarah Drew, on Instagram Thursday after the two made their final Grey’s Anatomy for the appearances.
Pompeo, 48, shared two separate posts in honor of Capshaw, 41, and Drew, 37.
“Boom… @thank you @jessicacapshaw for bringing it the way you have brought it for 10 amazing years… what a blessing you are and what a contribution you made to television history,” the leading star wrote in the caption for Capshaw, who portrayed Dr. Arizona Robbins for 10 seasons.
“Lit that screen up with your glow on the LGBT community… making a difference and making it all look so easy… GOAT #representationmatters #loveyou,” Pompeo concluded.
As for Drew, who played Dr. April Kepner for nine seasons, Pompeo thanked her for being “sugar and spice” on the long-running ABC hit.
“THANK YOU to this lady….@thesarahdrew you served up the sugar and spice for 9 years and it’s been a blast,” Pompeo wrote. “Your passion and talent for storytelling has touched so many people provoked thought and Greys is a better show because of it and you. #japrilfansdontplay.”
Pompeo was recently paid $20 million for her role as Meredith Grey in the Shonda Rhimes series. She refuted rumors that Capshaw and Drew were exiting the show because her own pay raise meant they couldn’t afford for them to come back.
Want to keep up on the latest from PEOPLE? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our best stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.“It’s absolutely not true,” she said. “I mean, I’m not involved in these kind of decisions. However, there are a few problems that you encounter doing a show for 14 seasons. One of them is that writers have a really hard time creatively, thinking up new stories for all these characters. It’s always sad when we lose people, for whatever reason.”
“I think that it’s important for us to not pit women against each other and to really dispel the notion that women are always victims,” she added. “We’re not enemies, we do lift each other up and support each other, and we’re not victims. We’re very strong, and we’re capable of many, many things.”