Grey's Anatomy's Ellen Pompeo Strips Down, Talks About Sexist Reader's Response To McDreamy's Exit

“Grey's Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo is best known for playing a doctor in the hit ABC television series. But the actress has shed down her on-screen inhibitions and stripped for the Entertainment Weekly magazine's latest issue.

Dressed in nothing but a doctor's white lab coat draped over her shoulders, Pompeo looks glamorous for her age of 45 years. To enhance her “Grey's Anatomy” look even further, the star also wraps a stethoscope over her shoulders. She is not wearing any accessories and looks sensual with her bright red lips. Her blonde hair is losely tousled over her forehead.

Pompeo also sat down with show's head Shonda Rhimes, "Scandal's" Kerry Washington and "How To Get Away With Murder's" Viola Davis for a discussion on prevalence of sexism in Hollywood. She reminisced about a time when her on-screen husband Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) left the show, and how she was flooded with reader's sexist reactions.

"All of a sudden, Patrick leaves, and it’s like, 'Oh my God, Meredith’s gonna get killed with Alzheimer’s!'" Pompeo said of the reader's response, according to Entertainment Weekly. "The show couldn’t possibly go on without the man!'"

Fans were furious at Rhimes' decision to kill off McDreamy, but she previously confessed in her interview that she was in a difficult situation when Dempsey decided to leave the show.

"What were the options? Either Der was going to walk out on Mer and leave her high and dry, and what was that going to mean?" she said. If she showed that Dempsey and Meredith (Pompeo) break-up, it would have conveyed a wrong message to her fans that their love was not true.

"As painful as it was for me as a storyteller, the only way to preserve what felt true to me was Derek was going to have to die for that love to remain honest," Rhimes added.

Season 12 of "Grey's Anatomy" premieres on Thursday, Sept. 24 at 8 PM ET/PT on ABC.