Ellen Pompeo and Husband Chris Ivery’s Relationship Timeline: From Meet-Cute to Marriage and More

06.12.2022 - 01:11 / usmagazine.com

Meant to be! Ellen Pompeo’s character Meredith Grey may have a rocky relationship history on Grey’s Anatomy — but her real-life love story is much more stable. 

Pompeo met husband Chris Ivery in a Los Angeles grocery store in 2003 and after six months of friendship, the couple began dating. “One night she just looked different to me,” Ivery told People in a joint December 2006 with the Old School star.

The pair quickly realized their meet-cute was meant to be when they discovered they had grown up about 10 miles away from each other in neighboring Massachusetts towns. 

For Pompeo, it didn’t take much more to know the music producer was The One. “I guess you fall in love and you think he’s the guy right away,” she gushed. “Right when you fall in love, you think he’s the guy. You don’t sort of fall into a relationship thinking it’s only going to be temporary. We were six degrees our whole lives, so I feel like we were sort of meant to be.”

The twosome secretly tied the knot a year later, with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg officiating the ceremony. “They took us in this underground tunnel underneath City Hall … and you’re in the mayor’s office. Behind a bookshelf, a wall opens and then you just walk in and you’re in his office,” Pompeo recounted during a 2017 episode of Live With Kelly and Ryan. “No one knew, so we had that to ourselves.” 

Throughout their marriage — and the birth of three children, daughters Stella and Sienna, and son Eli — Grey’s Anatomy made its way to becoming the longest-running medical drama in television history. Throughout its success, Pompeo remained at the helm of the series until she announced that she would be stepping back from the show in November 2022.

While Ivery has provided