Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl explain ‘ghost sex’ from ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ days

While Katherine Heigl loves looking back on her time on “Grey’s Anatomy,” there are certain moments from the show she has trouble revisiting — including her infamous “ghost sex” scene from the show’s fifth season.

Heigl, 44, reminisced about “Grey’s Anatomy” in a recent conversation with Ellen Pompeo for Variety, and said she couldn’t imagine watching that particularly intimate scene with her daughter, Naleigh, 14.

“There would be scenes that I would be so embarrassed to be sitting next to her watching,” Heigl said. “I’d be like, “Can we fast forward this moment?”

“Yeah,” Pompeo said. “This is sex with the ghost.”

“Yeah, that,” Heigl replied. “The oral sex with the ghost while somebody else was watching in the room. I don’t know how I’d explain that.”

In general, though, Heigl, who starred on the ABC medical drama from 2005 to 2010, said she always enjoyed watching the show in real time.

“When I was on, I watched every episode when it aired,” she said. “I was anxious to see how it all turned out.”

Pompeo, 53, also shared that she recently let her daughter, Stella Luna, start watching the show — although it took some initial convincing from Stella.

“Everyone in her class in the sixth grade had (seen the show), which I thought was a bit crazy, knowing what’s in the first seasons,” Pompeo told Heigl. “She was like, ‘Mom, I’m the only one who hasn’t seen it.’ So I said OK. In the summer, she started watching it.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh, this is so amazing, and we’re going to watch it together,’” Pompeo continued. “Then it was episode after episode after episode, and I was like, 'I don’t have the stamina for this!'"

Pompeo and Heigl seem to have developed a close bond during their days on “Grey’s Anatomy,” and they still have each other’s backs.

Last year, Pompeo praised Heigl for speaking out about the “insane” working hours on set at the time.

“She was 100% right, and had she said that today, she’d be a complete hero,” Pompeo said in an April 2022 episode of her “Tell Me” podcast with co-star Kate Walsh.

Pompeo also called her fellow actor "ahead of her time" for standing up for herself on set, despite receiving backlash.

"Of course, let’s slam a woman and call her ungrateful when the truth is she’s 100% honest and it’s absolutely correct what she said," Pompeo said.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com