Shonda Rhimes: ‘America is Not a Reality TV Show’
The entertainment powerhouse talks about creative concessions, getting dragged into culture wars and only taking meetings two days a week.
In a time of uncertainty, what kind of television feels right?
For Shonda Rhimes, one of the most powerful people in entertainment, the answer is escapist fare like her Netflix megahit Bridgerton, whose fourth season is due next year. Rhimes has spent three decades in the industry as a writer, producer, showrunner and executive; though she’s made political dramas such as Scandal, since the election she says she’s been trying to figure out what America is.
We spoke on stage at the Edinburgh TV Festival in Scotland, where she was honored with the inaugural Edinburgh Fellowship in recognition of her contribution to the TV industry. Rhimes is especially appreciated in the UK, where Bridgerton’s success has boosted tourism and jobs; we sat down on stage to a standing ovation.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Congratulations Shonda, on this and all your achievements. You wrote in your book about always feeling like you had to climb the mountain and get to the summit. Are you able to take this in?
I have only recently been able to take in what other people think about my body of work, and to accept the idea that I’m not necessarily climbing for my survival now, but I’m climbing because I like the view.
Let’s go back to how all this began. You grew up as the youngest of six children.
I’m the youngest of six. Two girls. Two boys. Two girls.
What does that mean? You’re the one that has to fight for space?
I grew up feeling like I was the Blue Ivy of my family, meaning that they thought I was wonderful, and they were incredibly supportive of what I wanted to do. Nobody allowed me to think that I was more wonderful than anybody else, but I did grow up in a family where I felt very seen.
And maybe some of the battles had been fought by your older siblings?
My siblings definitely fought all the battles. I feel like by the time I turned into a teenager, my parents were a little tired.
What were your earliest TV memories?
Oh, wow. I remember my family used to watch Good Times together. I remember watching Roots when I was maybe 5 or 6. I didn’t watch a ton of television growing up. But I watched a lot of movies. 1
1 Born in 1970, she also remembers her parents watching the Watergate hearings, a landmark TV moment. For me, growing up in the United Arab Emirates around the same time, the experience was very different: Local TV channels showed little more than visiting dignitaries and folk dancing. It was only when VCRs arrived and we borrowed movies from a small library that a new world opened up: mostly family classics like Mary Poppins but later more exciting fare such as Star Wars.
Your parents were both educators. When you went to film school after college, did that feel like a big and unusual thing in your family?
When I was in college, I really knew that I wanted to write. And at first I thought I wanted to be a novelist.
My parents were very hard workers. They had raised five other children and then they paid for an Ivy League education for their sixth, which was a very expensive prospect in America.
It felt important to me to do something real. I read that it was harder to get into USC film school than it was to get into Harvard Law School. And so I applied, and got in.
Was that the way you sold it to them — that this has got to be a good thing, because it’s so hard to get in?
I remember sending them an article that said so. I remember telling them that I could teach; I’d be a professor just like you, Mom. And at the time, it seemed like a reasonable proposition.
When you left film school, wasn’t there a period where you said you felt lost?
Yes. At film school, you’re in the middle of creative practice the entire time. You have the equipment, you’re talking to other writers, you’re taking classes. You feel like you are very engaged.
And then you leave film school and there’s nothing. It was trying to figure out how to make it in a town where I was nobody’s nepo baby — I didn’t have any connections.
What did you do?
I wrote a lot. And agents read those scripts. But still, I was working my day job with the mentally ill, helping them get job skills and find places to live. I was a secretary in that organization. I was there all day, and then at night I would go home and write. 2
2 This is an interesting contrast to the more familiar “waiting tables while writing a screenplay” route for aspiring Hollywood writers. Rhimes told me that if writing hadn’t worked out, she would have applied to medical school — in a way, those two paths came together with her first TV series.
I wrote a romantic comedy about an older white woman — who in my head was Susan Sarandon — who falls in love with a younger black man — who in my head was Will Smith — when she answers the wrong personals ad. And it sold. It never got made, but it sold two more times in turnaround. 3 So that sustained me for a pretty long period of time.
3 “Turnaround” is a distinct feature of the film industry, and refers to a studio deciding not to proceed with a project but wanting to recoup some of its investment by allowing others to take over the rights.
But then I think you made a conscious choice. You felt TV was where it was happening?
It was. I’d done some movies: Crossroads starring Britney Spears, and Princess Diaries 2. Then I had a baby. And what happens when you become a parent is you never leave the house. And I started watching television. I watched 24 hours of 24 in a day. I binge-watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 4
4 24 is an interesting reference point. The drama starring Kiefer Sutherland as federal agent Jack Bauer debuted in November 2001 and tapped into an America changed by 9/11. It was groundbreaking for its real-time format and a structure that made it impossible to miss an episode and still follow the story.
There were all these shows that I had never heard of and didn’t realize existed. And suddenly I knew: That’s where the character development is happening.
In two hours of a movie, you can grow from point A to point B, but then you’re done. With a television show, you get tons of character-development opportunities and I thought, That’s what I want to do.
But did you also have a sense that that’s where the power of the writer is greater?
They always say: In film the director fires the writer. And in TV the writer fires the director. Which is very true.
It wasn’t about me wanting the power, as much as wanting my creative vision: to see on screen the thing that I had in my head. I really wanted that to happen.
And so Grey’s Anatomy, how early did you start working on that?
I was 33.
I was pretty strategic. Bob Iger was the head of Disney, and someone said, Bob Iger really wants a medical show. And I was like, That’s perfect, because I’m obsessed with surgeries. So I wrote a show that I really wanted to watch. And luckily they wanted to see it, too.
We’re shooting our 450th episode as we speak. 5
5 Grey’s Anatomy, which follows a group of young doctors, began in 2005 and is heading into Season 22, having overtaken ER to become the longest-running TV medical drama. Episodes continue to debut live on ABC, but Grey’s has won new generations of fans through streaming.
Grey’s Anatomy was life-changing straightaway, for you.
It was. And it was surreal because I was not looking at it that way. I was inside the story. My first allegiance is to the story — not to the ratings or the fans. Every week our ratings would go up and up, and I honestly didn’t know what it meant. Then the network started giving me presents and I realized that we must be doing pretty good.
There are all sorts of layers that come with that, right? You end up being pulled in other directions.
You go from being somebody who’s at home in your pajamas writing, to somebody who’s at an office and there are 300 people looking at you and saying, What do you want to do? You’re doing a million extroverted things that I had never even thought about before. That was a real shock to my system. I was a very shy person when I started.
And what did it take out of you, to be pulled into this other world?
It was crazy, because it was exhausting but also really thrilling. The thing that was in my head was actually on the screen.
Because I had never worked in television before, I didn’t realize they could fire me. I thought, I’m the only person who knows what happens. I behaved like someone that no one could fire, and so even when things were tricky, I was completely comfortable standing up for what I believed in and owning my mistakes.
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When was it tricky?
It was always tricky. We made an episode of Grey’s where the interns, Sandra Oh and Justin Chambers, ran around telling patients that they were dying and they made it a contest about who could do it fast and get out. At the end of that, this wonderful woman, who’s maybe 85, rips them to shreds.
And it was a beautiful episode, and a beautiful lesson. The network felt it was in the poorest taste possible, and they were actually angry about it. They just did not get it. I was called into meetings, they forced me to reshoot. It was the first time I had to make a creative concession. That was incredibly difficult.
Were there times later on when you modulated what you did because you had seen the parameters?
It made me more determined to figure out how to tell the stories I wanted to tell, within whatever parameters we were given. In a weird way, it made me more creative, because I had to work around these constraints. It felt like a great puzzle to solve: I want to have this love scene, but I can only show this, this and this on television. How are we gonna do that?
At one point you’re holding down Thursday-night television for ABC. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder — three things in production at the same time, delivering every week. How on earth did you do that? 6
6 These three shows formed the TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) lineup on ABC primetime. Scandal (2012-18), inspired by real-life DC fixer Judy Smith, saw Kerry Washington as the fictional Olivia Pope, the first Black female lead of a major US network drama in nearly 40 years. How to Get Away with Murder (2014-16) starred Viola Davis, and led to the first of her Emmys.
It was a lot of pressure. Thursday nights in America, that is the most expensive night of advertising. It’s when they advertise the cars, the movies that are coming out on the weekend. So now I’m responsible for the entire Thursday night of how ABC makes their money.
But also — I’m sorry — there’s not a lot of complaining that I can do about any of this because I absolutely love my job. I never felt like work was a problem. I felt exhaustion was the problem.
You must have had to learn to delegate. You can no longer be the person that you were when you were just doing Grey’s Anatomy; you can no longer be as immersed.
Yes, no longer as immersed.
I’ve learned over the years how to really, what’s the word? Partition things off in my mind. I’m sure there’s a word for that my brain can’t find.
Compartmentalize?
Compartmentalize. I’d learned how to do that, so I was only working on one show [at a time] in my head.
I’d already learned how to work effectively with a crew. But what I really began to learn was, I’ve hired all these people. I have to let that person do their job.
What does your week look like? You have this setup where you live in Connecticut and Shondaland is based a few time zones away, on the West Coast.
We have Shondaland on the West Coast, we have a Shondaland office in New York, I live in Connecticut, and we have shows in London.
Moving away [from LA] was a real leap of trust to put people in place that I knew would handle things the way I wanted.
My job has always been, in the midst of showrunning, in the midst of all the business parts, to find real quiet, creative time to sit down and tell stories. That’s what they’re paying me for. They’re not paying me to sit in a meeting.
So on Mondays, I take meetings from noon my time to 3:00 pm my time. And then on Fridays, I have a longer window where I’m taking meetings. In between, it needs to be an emergency for me to take a meeting. 7
7 I loved this insight into how she manages her time, but it also made me smile because the Grey’s clip we played for the Edinburgh audience was the classic ‘Bailey’s 5 Rules’ bit from the show’s pilot. In it, Dr. Miranda Bailey tells the surgical interns exactly how to behave, including not waking her unless someone is dying.
Let’s go back to how Bridgerton began. I know you read the novels, but did you see the visual potential straightaway, or was it a slow burn?
It was right away. I was sick in a hotel room and somebody had left behind the first Julia Quinn book.
I had a lot of disdain for romance novels. I was sort of like, That’s beneath me. But I read this book and it was so good that I got out of bed, sick, went to the bookstore and bought the rest. I remember saying to my producing partner, Betsy Beers: I found this thing that’s a show. And she thought I’d lost my mind. 8
8 The author of the Bridgerton novels was in a Seattle Starbucks in January 2017 when she got a call from her agent saying that Shonda Rhimes’s representatives were asking if they could option the TV rights. Her response: Is this a trick question?
To me, Bridgerton is a workplace drama. The women have no power in any other areas of their lives, only in who they marry, and how they marry. So that marriage mart is a workplace.
I love the books. I thought they were brilliantly written, and more importantly I could see myself in them, which meant there was a universality to them. If a Black woman in the 21st century can see herself in Eloise, in Regency England, then there’s a story to be told that can really connect with audiences.
It’s had a huge economic impact in the UK, something like £250 million ($330 million). This is why you are a CBE — a Commander of the British Empire 9 — and we have more Daphnes, Colins and Eloises in the world because of you.
9 Awards within the UK honors system, given in the name of the King, are sometimes granted to foreign nationals. Rhimes was commended for services to UK-US relations, including Bridgerton boosting visitor numbers to filming locations in England and launching the careers of many British actors.
[Rhimes laughs.]
You know, what I love about Bridgerton is that it became a lifestyle brand. I can’t tell you how many tea sets have been sold, how many Bridgerton proms and weddings have been going on. It’s really interesting.
And did you imagine that when it began?
I had the experience of working on Grey’s — we became a brand that sold the bestselling scrubs in the country for years. So I did understand the power. When we did Scandal, I remember Olivia Pope would drink out of a wine glass and that wine glass would sell out at Crate & Barrel.
So when we started the show, I did think, People are going to get excited about this. I knew that there would be merchandise opportunities. Did I know that there would be as many as there are? No. 10
10 Bridgerton is far from the only show doing this, as themed events and other attractions become important revenue sources. Paramount’s hotel portfolio is expanding, with rooms linked to classic films and to its Nickelodeon kids brand. Disney is developing more themed cruises. The approach doesn’t always work, though: A Batman-themed restaurant in London has closed, and there’s less potential for grittier shows such as Ozark.
Do you ever worry what it teaches the industry — that if they can’t see that kind of economic dividend, maybe it gets harder for a show to be commissioned?
I’m trying to think how to say this without sounding like a jerk. It’s really rare that a show does what the Shondaland shows have done.
What worries me is that people are making shows based on algorithms and numbers, versus making shows based on creative quality.
How many seasons do you think it will run for?
Bridgerton? Exactly eight.
You’re not going to let your imagination run wild? You’ve done Queen Charlotte, which is the prequel.
I think there’s a possibility for things like prequels, and Julia Quinn has written other books that are sort of offshoots of Bridgerton. But the Bridgerton series is eight young people — it’s Violet Bridgerton getting all eight of her children married. And so every season’s a child.
British period drama has almost always been portrayed as a very White world.
Yeah.
Were you trying to shake it up?
I don’t know that I was trying to shake it up, as much as I’m never going to write a show that doesn’t include me. It just doesn’t make any sense.
There’s nothing wrong with the other shows being the way they are. I just find it less interesting when I don’t see my own face.
And Queen Charlotte, which you wrote yourself. How did that come about?
I was obsessed with Queen Charlotte. Once we made [Bridgerton], and I saw how [she] was played, I just began to imagine what that past and inner life was.
The books didn’t have Queen Charlotte in them. We put that in there, and once we decided that, and we’d made a society that was somewhat united in terms of color, I really wanted to see how that happened. 11
11 Some historians believe that the wife of King George III had African ancestors, through a branch of the Portuguese royal family. Shondaland’s Queen Charlotte opens with the disclaimer that it is “fiction inspired by fact. All liberties taken by the author are quite intentional.”
How did you feel about Bridgerton being described as woke?
I didn’t know anybody described it as woke.
The Telegraph called it “pandering to woke casting.”
Oh, that’s so cute.
[Audience laughs.]
Getting dragged into the culture wars — something you produce being seen through a culture-war lens — does it bother you?
No. I don’t read things that are written about me or the shows.
And the reason is, if you decide to believe the good things that are written about you, you also are obligated to believe the bad things that are written about you. So I’ve decided that none of it matters. How people react and take in the show is none of my business.
You left X around the time that Elon Musk took it over.
Yes.
Was it because of Elon Musk? Or because it interfered with your creative space?
Scandal was the first show to live-tweet anything and to create that kind of relationship online. We loved it. And so I didn’t leave because I didn’t like the interaction. I’d long since understood that reading the comments isn’t a smart idea. I left because Elon Musk took over Twitter.
You don’t miss that kind of interaction? You are on Instagram.
I’m on Instagram and I’m on Threads. It’s a very different kind of interaction. But the interaction that was there before on Twitter doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s fine.
I want to understand more about the creative process and your craft. I’ve heard you say that sometimes you don’t know how the story ends. I imagine that’s not the case with Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte, where you’re following a historical path, or the path in the novels?
I had no idea how Queen Charlotte was going to end.
Really?
I was in the middle of episode four and I was like, I know you’re still shooting, but can somebody send me Corey [Mylchreest]’s performance of George having one of his medical crises, so that I can see how that’s going? And that would inform what I wrote next. 12
12 King George III (1738-1820) ended up being the last king to rule over the American colonies. He suffered from mental illness for much of his life.
It’s a collaborative process. It’s not my vision being smashed onto something. I always feel I write a story and that’s the balloon, but the actors and the production blow that balloon up and make it float.
When you’re no longer the writer or the showrunner on something, say Grey’s Anatomy, what’s the process there? Do they run things past you?
Handing off Grey’s was surprisingly hard. There were certain rules I put in place for my own sanity, and I think theirs. They pitch every season to me, [but] I no longer oversee any of the editing [and] I don’t oversee the writer’s room. Because if my creative brain is right there inside the process, then everybody is going to bend towards me. And I don’t want that.
It’s why I don’t watch the episodes anymore before they air, because if I did I would have opinions. And if I have opinions, they have to take those opinions as notes, and then it’s not their show.
This is the 50th year of the Edinburgh TV Festival. The US has contributed more than any other country to the development of TV as we know it. A few months ago, you said that after the election, you were trying to figure out what America is.
Yes.
Have you?
No.
I really used to pride myself on feeling like, If I love something, the audience is going to love it, because I’m writing something that I want to watch. If I felt passionate, then that passion translates, and generally I have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on.
That changed fundamentally with the election because I felt, Do I know what’s going on anymore? I’m still trying to figure it out.
It’s a very different world we’re living in now. Scandal couldn’t have existed in this moment in time. It wouldn’t have been that interesting. Scandal could exist when everything was good. When the lights are on, everybody loves a ghost story, but when the lights are out permanently, people want a warm campfire.
So I feel like we’re now trying to tell things that are more escapist. Bridgerton came out during the pandemic, and was a huge hit in part because everybody was trapped in their homes, searching for something to let them escape.
And yet, you’ve politically been conscious, and active. Are you going to sit this period out? 13
13 Rhimes has been associated with a number of high-profile Democrats and campaigns, from making an ad for Hillary Clinton in 2016 to appearing on Bill Clinton’s podcast in 2021, fundraising for Joe Biden and supporting Kamala Harris.
Do you mean personally? Because I think there’s a difference between my personal activism as Shonda and what our company does as Shondaland. And I really try to keep that separate because our job is to entertain.
My job may be to march and be angry and do things. I like being engaged. I think it’s my responsibility as a citizen to have an opinion and know what’s going on.
So when you resigned from the Kennedy Center Board in February, when President Trump took over the chairmanship, that’s a decision to retreat rather than engage? That leaves a space on the board for someone he wants to put there. 14
14 The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. After Trump ousted trustees and replaced them with allies, he said he was involved in choosing this year’s Honor recipients, rejecting some as “wokesters.”
No, I definitely don’t see it as a decision to retreat. I stayed on that board through his appointment, mainly because I was the treasurer and it was my duty to ask all the smart fiduciary questions while they were making that transition.
But once that transition was made, I was the only person left who was an artist, who was of the old regime. I was the only surviving member of the board, if you put it that way. And therefore, in my mind, it wasn’t a board anymore. It’s certainly not the board with the same mission that I came in with, that we all had.
I can stand there and shake my fist, but if the entire mission of an organization has changed, you are no longer useful to the organization.
Are you able to keep some kind of emotional distance?
I don’t know if emotional distance is the right word. I have very strong feelings. I also have strong feelings about what I think is effective right now. I just think that there’s a different way to be effective in this moment in time, because the old methods obviously did not work.
Can the Democrats produce an election winner in three years’ time?
Of course they can.
Who are you looking at?
I’m not looking at anybody. That’s not my job.
I asked Tina Brown this question not long ago. She can’t see anyone with the charisma and media power — what Donald Trump has been able to do in the way that he captures public attention.
I don’t think that way. I don’t think that America is a reality TV show. I think that there’s lots of competent and amazing politicians who have been working very hard — who, given the opportunity and the stage, could do a lot of good.
Is there an impact creatively? I’m thinking about Paramount settling the lawsuit with President Trump. Is there self-censoring, or stifling, or a retreat?
I can’t know everybody else’s motives, in that I don’t know exactly what was going on behind the scenes at CBS. I think that it definitely feels that way to a lot of people, that there is a self-censoring going on.
Would it change anything you do creatively?
No. I feel lucky in that I’m sitting in a space where I can make the shows that matter to me. I can make the shows that matter to our company. Maybe that won’t last forever, but it’s here now and I’m taking advantage of it.
The fact that you are a brand, the company carries your name, do you think about what a corporate succession plan looks like?
Absolutely. I think that’s important. The silliest thing I ever did was name my company Shondaland. I was being cheeky, about Disneyland. I did not realize that it was going to become this big giant company and this big giant brand.
But once it has, I want people to say one day: There was a Shonda for Shondaland? Not to even remember me, but to remember the company and its work.
And so, for me, that makes it important that we figure out who’s going to step in – who are we raising up? We have people who stayed at our company for 20 years because they’ve grown there, started out as assistants and become something more. I mean, Meg Marinis was the [production assistant], and then the researcher, on Grey’s Anatomy — she’s now the showrunner.
Even now, at the height of your powers, you still have to deal with disappointment, don’t you? When things you care about don’t get to the next stage, like The Residence, for example. You still have to be resilient.
Oh, I absolutely think we have to be resilient. The Residence is the first thing in a wildly long time that hasn’t moved forward or back based on my decision-making. That was hard. It was frustrating. It’s a show that I really loved, but I also understand the economic realities for Netflix.
That show is incredibly popular in America. It was not necessarily as popular globally. Netflix is a global channel. It’s about making shows that work for them. [That was] part of the goal when I moved to Netflix. 15
15 International content is an increasingly critical part of Netflix’s strategy as the company hits a saturation point for new users in the US (though it’s doing fine on revenue). After the surprise success of Squid Game out of South Korea, Thailand is one of the countries where it is now ramping up production.
That was an incredibly important moment for you personally, and for Netflix. Do you think more in terms of content than TV?
No. TV is TV to me.
We have podcasts, we have other ways that we are telling stories. But for me, if you’re watching it on a television screen, it’s TV. That’s how my brain works. 16
16 Interesting, and makes sense from a creator’s point of view. But today, a family might be simultaneously watching four different TV shows on their separate mobile devices, or have their attention split between multiple devices.
Would you say traditional TV is in decline? Because recently there were some stats that showed streaming had captured more viewers than broadcast and cable. 17
17 According to data from Nielsen, streaming hit a milestone in May 2025 when for the first time its share of total television usage exceeded that of broadcast and cable combined. Netflix garnered over 95 million viewing hours in the first half of 2025, with UK drama Adolescence being the most-watched show.
I definitely think that the way people are consuming television is changing. It’s seismic. When I made the choice to move from network television to Netflix, it was a big deal because nobody thought of those kinds of companies as being necessarily full content creators.
For me, it was about the challenge. Netflix worked like a startup. Disney worked like a solid, old-school corporation.
That period between 2017, when the deal was announced, and 2020, when your first work for Netflix dropped — you’ve said there was anxiety.
Oh, there was so much anxiety. I came into Netflix with a lot of expectations of what I was required to do. Those expectations were things I made up in my head, but they were still my expectations. And so for me, the idea that we weren’t making four shows a year, producing a ton of content, was hard. I thought we were failing.
What was great was Netflix wasn’t pushing at all — although [Netflix co-CEO] Ted Sarandos will tell you that he would invite me to parties and I would refuse to go. And he would ask why. And I would say, Because I haven’t made anything yet. I can’t show up at your house.
I put a lot of pressure on myself and on our company to do things that we weren’t even being asked to do.
What do the next 10 years look like? Do you think you will hand over to someone else in that period?
I don’t know. You know Norman Lear? I think he was 101 when he stopped working.
I want to tell stories, but I am ensuring that the company can run, even if I’m not running the company.
And for everyone here who battles with pressures — commercial, editorial, creative, political maybe — and wants to keep on doing great work, leave us with some golden rules. What can we hang onto in difficult times?
I think the biggest rule I can say is: Be true to yourself and your vision. Everybody will tell you what people want, what algorithms tell you, what they heard on the street. None of those things matter.
I don’t think there should be anything that you’re afraid of approaching, telling, doing. There’s always a way.
And what will you write next?
I can’t talk about that right now.
Are you writing?
I am in the thinking stage. I do this thing where I think for like nine months and then I write a script in a day. So I’m in the thinking stage.
We will watch this space. Shonda Rhimes, thank you.
Mishal Husain is Editor at Large for Bloomberg Weekend.