“Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has revealed how Madonna finally helped her to cope with the loss of her mother.

The 37-year-old’s mother died when she was four-years-old but for years the family banned any mention of her.

It wasn’t until years later that Ellen, whose earliest memory is the day her mother died, could come to terms with what happened to her.

She said: “It was very tough. I think it was probably tougher for my older siblings who were a lot more cognisant of what was going on. I think I was so young there’s only so much I could understand.

“My first memory is the day she died and all the commotion.

“It’s a funny thing what happened. I come from a tradition Irish-Italian background and things aren’t talked about, you know, they’re not spoken about.

“Her death wasn’t really spoken about for years and she wasn’t spoken about. It was almost as if she never existed. It was too painful for everybody to talk about.

“So I knew what happened but I was never really allowed to grieve. There was a big chunk that was missing out of the story I didn’t quite understand.

“I was very confused and very unhappy as a young teenager.”

It wasn’t until Ellen saw Madonna talking about her mum, who she also lost as a child, that she was able to grieve.

She said: “For the first time I saw Madonna when she first came out and she was on television talking and singing songs about her mother and how her mother had passed and how sad she was.

“And it dawned on me ‘oh that’s what happened to me, my mother died’.

“And it makes you terribly sad and that’s why I’m so unhappy and it’s okay to talk about it and it’s okay to grieve and I should be sad and I should be upset and I should be allowed to go through these things.

“I didn’t even realise the enormity of what had happened because it had been so sort of buried for obvious reasons I suppose.

“So I did go through that process because of Madonna, because I saw her talking about it and singing about it, I was able to understand what happened to me and work through it and use my experiences in my favour to give me a lot of what I draw from when I act.”

Ellen also revealed that the chemistry between the Grey’s Anatomy cast is the secret to its success.

Speaking on the TV show Richard and Judy she said: “The chemistry of the cast is just lightening in a bottle. You can’t sort of plan it, you can’t predict it.

“We just all have tremendous chemistry and we got very, very lucky and we all get on very well and I think the audience feels that.

“They all are very, very skilled actors and really make you feel the stories.”

Ellen also revealed how she and her co-star Patrick Dempsey are neighbours.

She said: “Patrick Dempsey and I were neighbours. We hadn’t met but of course I had known that he lived on the street because all the girls would say ‘oh Patrick Dempsey lives in that house up there’.

“And so when I tested for the role and I had to test with the would-be love interests I saw his name on the sheet and I said ‘oh it’s going to be him’. I had a feeling because things kind of work like that don’t they.”

Ellen, who loves the traditional British dish bangers and mash, had to perform a fake operation on a plastic model to win her meal on the chat show. She won three sausages. ”

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