With Grey’s Anatomy’s 21st season currently airing on the 2024 TV schedule, it’s been six years since Sarah Drew’s character was written off of the show. She’s spoken out before about how “confusing” it was to be let go from that job, since April Kepner had become a favorite of the fandom, and in a conversation with two other Grey’s actresses, she recently opened up about the “mean and unjust” way she was fired.
Sarah Drew was a guest on the Call It What It Is podcast, hosted by her former Grey’s Anatomy co-stars Camilla Luddington and Jessica Capshaw, and she discussed how she felt when she learned she’d be leaving the show at the end of Season 14, following nine years of playing April Kepner. She clarified her comment from around that time when she said it was like “attending your own funeral,” saying:
What I was trying to describe was… [I] was unceremoniously let go in a way that felt really mean and unjust, and, because of that, the outpouring of love was so enormous that it was like you were sitting there watching people say all the things that they love about you after you’re dead.
It’s clear that she’s still got some negative feelings about how her time on Grey’s Anatomy ended, but that hasn’t stopped her from making a couple of guest appearances. She returned in Season 17 amid Jesse Williams’ own exit as her on-off love interest Jackson Avery, and both Sarah Drew and Williams returned in the Season 18 finale, confirming to fans that Japril had reunited.
Guest-starring has been a completely different experience for Sarah Drew, as she continued:
I have no attachment to it at all, so there’s peace. So when you’re on the show, you never know what’s gonna happen. You never know if they’re gonna lose interest in your storyline or if you piss off the wrong person then something’s gonna happen. Like, you don’t know. But when I just popped back in, just to say hello, I have zero anxiety. I don’t need anything from anybody on that set anymore. They’re not responsible for my livelihood anymore. They’re not responsible for my success or my joy. So it feels very, very freeing to pop back in.
She also spoke on the podcast about how the show — and April’s romance with Jackson Avery — changed the roles she was able to get hired for. Sarah Drew said:
Prior to my character getting with Jesse Williams, I’ve always played awkward, grating, annoying, ugly duckling, not-beautiful people. Seriously. It’s always like weird stalker who is after Mr. Schue, or the pathetic wife who’s married to a man who doesn’t love her, or the really ugly best friend to the Emily VanCamp character in Everwood that people comment on how ugly she is because she’s wearing glasses. Yes, I was ugly until my character started dating Jesse. And now I’m playing romantic leads.
Romantic leads are the only jobs keeping Sarah Drew busy since leaving Grey’s Anatomy, as she's also gotten into writing and executive producing. She even reunited with Justin Bruening, her ex-husband from the medical drama, for a Lifetime Christmas movie.
The actress was part of some of Grey’s Anatomy’s best episodes after making her premiere in Season 6 (the “Mercy West Era” is one of the great places to start rewatching Grey’s Anatomy). The way in which she was let go is pretty unfortunate, but it sounds like a return could always be in the cards — especially with her on-screen beau Jackson Avery already making an appearance in Season 21.
Tune in to find out if we’ll ever see April Kepner again, as new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy air at 10 p.m. Thursdays on ABC and can be streamed the next day with a Hulu subscription.