Denzel Washington is ignoring a viral story about a confrontation he allegedly once had with Ellen Pompeo on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
In an interview for a Variety profile published Thursday, the two-time Oscar winner was asked about the alleged fight, which Pompeo described on her “Tell me with Ellen Pompeo” podcast in September. Pompeo said he once cursed Washington while he was directing “The Sound of Silence,” an episode of the ABC series that aired in 2016.
Washington, however, refused to give Pompeo’s story any further impetus.
“No, no,” he told Variety in this week’s article, claiming he didn’t remember that day. The actor, producer and director then added with a slight smile, “But everything is fine,” according to the publication. (Read Variety’s full profile here.)
Pompeo made headlines in September when he recounted his work on the set of “Grey’s” with Washington.
The actor, who plays Meredith Gray on the show, claimed that while “working with Denzel was amazing,” he “went crazy” with her one day when she improvised and went off-script in a scene during an exchange with another actor.
“Denzel went crazy,” he told his former “Gray” co-star Patrick Dempsey on the podcast. “He said, ‘I’m the director, don’t tell him what to do.’
“And I was like, ‘Listen you son of a bitch, this is my show, this is my set, who are you telling? Like, you hardly know where the bathroom is, ‘”she recalled.
Pompeo said he has “the utmost respect” for Washington, but that there was a period after the alleged incident when he stopped talking to him. That’s “actors for you,” he said, “passionate and fiery.”
“That’s where you get the magic, that’s where you get the good stuff,” he told Dempsey, adding that it was still an “amazing experience.”
She later said that she and Washington “were fine” after the ordeal.
But Pompeo sparked a backlash over the story, with some on social media saying the interaction was a demonstration of white privilege.
“I wonder if he would talk to [Martin] Scorsese or [Steven] Spielberg like this? MSNBC presenter Tiffany Cross tweeted in September.
Washington’s most recent film as a director, “A Journal for Jordan,” stars Michael B. Jordan and Chanté Adams. The film hit theaters on Christmas Day.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.