Isaiah Washington as Preston Burke
In season 3, Burke left Christina at the altar and walked away, eventually winning a Harper Avery Award elsewhere and then at some point moving to Zurich, Switzerland, to open his own high-tech hospital. He married and started a family, and in season 10 he invited Christina to his hospital to take over in his place when he retired.
Isiah Washington left the series after he reportedly called co-star TR Knight a gay slur during an on-set altercation with Patrick Dempsey, but his defense only went from bad to worse until he was eventually dropped from the series. Apparently he and ABC reconciled in 2014, bringing him back briefly.
As for what Washington had to say about the incident? He later apologized publicly, adding in another statement that he “could no longer deny that there were issues in my soul that clearly needed to be considered and I asked for help.”
In the years following his departure from Grey’s Anatomy, he played Thelonious Jaha on The CW’s The 100, a role that died in season 5, before landing a role on Starz’s critically acclaimed P-Valley.
