Natalie Morales is setting the record straight following her shocking Grey’s Anatomy exit. “Guys, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not dead,” Morales, 40, said in a TikTok video shared on Friday, October 10. “I’m right here. Don’t worry. No matter what you’ve heard or what you’ve read in the comments of all my other videos, I didn’t die.”
She added with a smile, “I’m right here. You can come see me any time you want. Thank you for worrying, though.”
Morales recently joined Grey’s Anatomy as pediatric surgeon Dr. Monica Beltran. Her character met a tragic end in the Thursday, October 9, season 22 premiere after being injured in a fatal explosion on the operating room floor of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
While fans were stunned by the twist, the cast themselves were also caught off guard.
“They don’t tell us a lot. It was to the point over the summer, I had texted Chris Carmack, who plays Link, and I was like, ‘Hey, man, so do you make it or what’s going on?’ And, like, he didn’t know either,” Anthony Hill, who plays Dr. Winston Ndugu, told on Friday.
“A lot of us aren’t really sure about all the details, and they kind of keep that from us, probably on purpose, because some of us talk a lot.”
He continued, “I think it was surprising once we got the script, which was right before we started filming, and then, it was sad because you’re thinking about it from a perspective of your coworkers [and] not just characters.
Stepping into the characters, of course, it’s sad and it’s tragic, but then there’s another layer of sadness because Natalie is my buddy, and it’s, like, ‘Oh man, I loved working with her and hanging out.’”
Onscreen, Monica’s death will bring a new set of challenges to the remaining Grey Sloan doctors. “There are a lot of challenges for the people who survived the blast for lots of different reasons,” Hill, 37, said.
“Everybody has their own traumas from that experience in that blast, and then, picking up the pieces and trying to literally put the hospital back together and figure out how to move forward is going to be a tough dynamic to navigate for everybody and their health physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
Hill’s character, Winston, was seen offering support alongside Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) and Jules Millen (Adelaide Kane) in the premiere as they each processed their grief.
“That was a very emotional scene for Addie to play, so it’s a layered scene for her,” Hill explained of Winston and Jules’ supply closet moment.
“I just found myself trying to be present with my acting coworker and tried to help her give the best performance she could. … It’s heated, like, it’s charged. I don’t know if we were aware of that fully, but seeing it play out [in the episode] was really beautiful.”
Hill also weighed in on fan speculation that Winston and Jules might have shared a near-kiss in the emotional scene. (Winston serves as head of cardiothoracic surgery, while Jules is still a resident under his supervision.)
“Winston was trying to be there for Jules. He sees she’s having a breakdown. He cares about her. He knows [there are] levels of trauma that are indescribable,” Hill said.
“What happens through that [are some things] you can’t control, and I think there was an energy between them that was undeniable in that moment. So were either of them going in for a kiss? Not purposefully, but I think what ended up evolving in that scene was something magnetic and special that wasn’t planned.”
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.