Today is Isaiah Washington's Birthday, and all the 43-year-old actor wants for a present is for us to believe his latest ‘tell all' moment.  This time, it's an attempt to wriggle free of intent to breach contract accusations being slung at the actor and NBC Co-Chair Ben Silverman by ABC's Stephen McPherson. 

When McPherson responded to Silverman's statements that he was interested in Washington before the actor was let go, the ABC exec accused Silverman of committing what would amount to luring the embattled actor into a willful breach of contract.  Now, freshly cemented into his new role on Bionic Woman, Washington is in an all too familiar position: damage control. 

The former Grey's Anatomy star turned to Entertainment Weekly to give his side of the story and put to rest any claims that he was conspiring to jump ship while under contract at ABC, a potentially actionable offense.

When asked by Entertainment Weekly reporter Whitney Pastorek when he was approached by NBC to come on board, Washington replied “…on June 7, about six hours after I was let go by ABC.”

Washington goes on to recount a chance meeting with the cast and crew of Bionic Woman who were doing a meet-and-greet at a restaurant the star was incidentally dining at.   He approached the crew, talked, and one thing led to another.  Entertainment Weekly confirmed that Washington was indeed at the restaurant that night as they had writers on the scene covering the Battlestar Galactica get together.  Washington was not up to commenting that particular evening though.

As for Washington's casting on Bionic Woman, the actor claims he was given his choice of any show he wanted, but his fan boy creed was enough to draw him into Bionic Woman. “I have a wonderful respect for David Eick and Glen Morgan, the producers. I find what David's done with Battlestar Galactica amazing, and I was a huge fan of Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar, so I said, Any team that can re-create something like this and do it well, I want to check that out. And I was attracted to Glen Morgan because of X-Files.” Washington told Ew.

Few believed that McPherson's mention of breach of contract was a serious legal threat to begin with, but with Washington's verbal self defense skills so polished these days, it'd sure be a shame to put them to waste.


- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source: Entertainment Weekly
(Image Courtesy of ABC)