Katherine Heigl: I Was 'Angry' as a Working Mom

That's why she quit 'Grey's Anatomy' in 2010
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 6, 2014 10:54 AM CDT
Katherine Heigl: I Was 'Angry' as a Working Mom
In this photo released by PMK/HBH on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009, actress Katherine Heigl and her husband Josh Kelley pose with daughter Naleigh on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009.   (AP Photo/Cheyenne Ellis, PMK-HBH)

Katherine Heigl is on Good Housekeeping's September cover, and inside the issue she reflects on why she quit Grey's Anatomy back in 2010. She and husband Josh Kelley had just adopted daughter Naleigh, now 5, the year prior, and soon after she arrived, Heigl was working on a movie shoot. "I would come home angry and frustrated that I'd missed everything with my kid that day," she says. "I didn't get to wake her up from her nap, or do bath time or bedtime. I'd have to sneak into her room and kiss her when she was sleeping, hoping not to wake her up."

"I felt like my priorities were messed up," she continues. "I was putting so much time and energy into just my work, but I was raised [to believe] that family comes first." So she took a few "glorious" months of family leave from Grey's, which made her realize she needed to exit the show entirely. In 2012, the family adopted Adalaide, now 2. "Naleigh would go off to her ballet classes and other stuff, and I would sit with the baby at home. I would read, and she would lie on my chest, and we'd lie on the couch with, like, four dogs, and watch Friday Night Lights," Heigl says. "I found it so peaceful." (More Katherine Heigl stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X