Katherine Heigl: I Quit Grey's Because "My Priorities Were Messed Up"

Katherine Heigl says one of her main motivations to leave Grey's Anatomy was so she could spend more time with her family.

In an interview with Good Housekeeping, Heigl says that between shooting movies and Grey's Anatomy, her schedule didn't leave her enough time with her daughter Naleigh, whom she and husband Josh Kelley adopted from South Korea in 2009. "I would come home angry and frustrated that I'd missed everything with my kid that day," Heigl tells GH. "I didn't get to wake her up from her nap, or do bath time or bedtime. I'd have to sneak into her room and kiss her when she was sleeping, hoping not to wake her up."

Does Katherine Heigl regret leaving Grey's Anatomy?

Even before she and Kelley adopted Naleigh, however, Heigl had asked for a lighter work load on Grey's as she tried to balance the show with her burgeoning film career. After taking a couple leaves of absences, she left the series in 2010 after creator Shonda Rhimes agreed to release her from her contract.

"I felt like my priorities were messed up," she says of that period. "I was putting so much time and energy into just my work, but I was raised [to believe] that family comes first."

In 2012, Heigl and Kelley adopted a second daughter, Adelaide, in Louisiana. With her daughters now ages 5 and 2, Heigl is set to return to TV for the upcoming NBC drama State of Affairs.

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