Eric Dane believes he wasn't the one to throw in the towel on his role on Grey's Anatomy . The actor, who played Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan for more than six seasons until his character was killed off in the season nine premiere in 2012, says he thinks he was fired from the ABC medical drama.
“I didn't leave,” Dane said on the June 24 episode of Dax Shepard ' s Armchair Expert podcast , "so much as, I think I was let go." The Euphoria actor said that while he was struggling with substance addiction at the time, that was not the reason for his exit. “They didn’t let me go because of that, although it definitely didn’t help," the 51-year-old continued.
"I was starting to become—as most of these actors who have spent significant time on a show—you start to become very expensive for the network. And the network knows that the show is going to do what it’s going to do, irrespective of who they keep on it. As long as they have their [Meredith] Grey, they’re fine.
” Dane added, "I wasn't the same guy they had hired. So I had understood when I was let go." E! News has reached out to reps for Shonda Rhimes ' Shondaland, the series' production company, and the ABC network for comment and has not heard back.
“Shonda was really great. She protected us fiercely," Dane said. "But I was probably fired.
It wasn’t ceremoniously like, ‘You’re fired,’ it was just like, ‘You’re not coming back.'” In July 2011, months before the premiere of season eight of Grey's.
