Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo and TMZ’s Harvey Levin Spar Over Kobe Coverage

The loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, and seven other souls is tragic. Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo took to social media to shine a light on something that may have made the horrific news even worse — and that is the theory that family members learned of their loved ones perishing by reading about it on the Internet.

Grey’s Anatomy’s Star Speaks Out

News of the tragedy broke on TMZ and now there are reports saying that the media outlet published the story before Bryant’s wife Vanessa and family members of other the victims could be notified. Pompeo composed and posted some tweets calling out Levin and his website, TMZ.

“So many questions I have…” Pompeo wrote, “if we’re not tolerating abuse anymore…shouldn’t we be calling this out? Exploiting women who have been abused… exploiting the brutal sudden death of peoples loved ones is certainly emotional abuse… I call times up on his behavior.”

The Grey’s actress is wondering how TMZ was able to report the news before it got to the victims’ families. “It’s not really that hard to figure out…” Pompeo theorizes that TMZ has law enforcement officials on his payroll as the site is known for having news first.

One poster responded to Pompeo’s tweet, pointing out that perhaps it’s Harvey’s sources who are to blame — not the outlet for reporting the news as they find it.

Levin, however, told KNX1070 News Radio that he and the TMZ team were in touch with Bryant’s representatives and those reps gave the go-ahead to print the story. As for the importance of holding off on the story before families of other crash victims were notified, Levin conceded, “That’s a fair point.”

Twitter user @Saskygrl offered the following in response to one of Pompeo’s tweet: “Social media breaks everything in a half second. There is no privacy. Those poor families will always relive it but they have SO much more to think about.”