Katherine Heigl Shares The Lessons She Learned After 'Grey's Anatomy' Backlash

Actress Katherine Heigl revealed that when people turned against her as a result of her comments on "Grey's Anatomy," she felt stabbed in the back.

Heigl described her movie, "Knocked up," as "a little sexist" in an interview she gave to a well-known news outlet in 2008, and also called her "Grey's Anatomy" character twist "a rating's ploy."

The actress admitted to being perplexed by people's reactions despite multiple apologies and shared the valuable lessons she learned from the unfortunate experience.

Read on for more details.

During her interview with Vanity Fair, the actress was candid about her opinion on "Grey's Anatomy" as she admitted she was trying to understand her "Izzie" character on the medical drama, who went from being a laid-back lover to having an adulterous relationship.

"That was kind of a big change for Izzie, wasn't it, after she was so up on her moral high ground," she commented at the time, calling it "a rating's ploy."

Heigl also opened up about her views on the critically acclaimed movie "Knocked Up," which was the movie that shot her into the limelight.

"It was a little sexist," she said, adding that "It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it on some days. I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you're portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time, it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie."

Despite her disagreement with the "Knocked Up" film, she stated that she enjoyed working on set with Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen.

Following the public declaration of her opinion on both movies, the "27 Dresses" star was criticized for her remark and received heavy backlash. She recently admitted, in an interview for the February issue of Red magazine, that she felt "betrayed" and bewildered at the reception of her comments.

Heigl said per Yahoo, "I'm not the only person in the industry who's had ups and downs... But it's like as soon as things were going too well, there was this need to say, 'Slow down there—let's humble her.' I felt betrayed."

The 44-year-old continued, "I felt confused, wondering, 'How could they turn on me so quickly? I'm just trying to entertain people."

With all this behind Heigl, she is gradually having a career resurgence with her starring role in the TV series, "Firefly Lane."

The actress has apologized several times for her comments but believes doing so has done more harm than good to the situation overall.

She stated that by apologizing repeatedly, she ended up dragging the issue and giving it life and that she should've only apologized once.

"I kept apologizing, which I now realize just kept giving the whole thing a heartbeat. I thought self-flagellation in front of everybody would make them happy, but actually, it made me weaker in people's eyes and made me feel weak. I now think that one apology was enough," she said in her Red magazine interview according to Yahoo.

The "One for the Money" actress has vowed not to shy away from continually talking about important issues, stating that she'll "always stand up for things I believe in," but said, "airing dirty laundry is not necessary and will just fuel gossip."

"For example, I'll continue to take a hard stand about long working hours for cast and crew on movie sets, because it's not good for people's mental or physical health. I'm not going to apologize for that stance, and I don't really care if people agree with me or not," she said.

The experience taught Heigl a valuable lesson that "if it's a personal matter - if I've had a problem with someone in a work capacity - I've learned to keep that a little more private."

Another lesson she learned is not to take people's opinions of her very seriously. "My father used to say, 'Don't read the good reviews if you won't read the bad.' I now understand his point. Whether they hate you or love you, it doesn't matter," she said

"You have to know who you are; you can't depend on public opinion for your self-esteem."