Last week ABC announced that Katherine Heigl would be taking a temporary five-week leave of absence from Grey’s Anatomy. Dame Heigl is deigning to grace a film with her presence, you see, so her Grey’s character is leaving for a short while. While we all assumed there was a great “Hallelujah” on the set of Grey’s, it’s now being confirmed by sources to Betty Confidential. Sources are claiming that after Heigl’s diva behavior (like her disrespectful comments about the Grey’s crew while appearing on The Late Show) have earned her nothing but scorn on the set of the ABC hit show. The cast is “ecstatic” that Dame Heigl will be leaving for any period of time. Sources also claim that Heigl “grates on the nerves” of the ABC studio bosses – one of whom called Heigl’s attitutde “unfortunate” after the Letterman incident. Don’t you feel for Dame Heigl’s husband Josh Kelley? Well, they’ve got the scoop on Josh too!

The set of Grey’s Anatomy is about to get a lot more chilled out. Katherine Heigl is taking a leave of absence from the hit show for five weeks to shoot a movie and there are some in the cast and crew who are happy to see her go.

Katherine will begin filming the romantic comedy Life As We Know It this month, and an insider tells BettyConfidential that certain cast members are “ecstatic” that she will be gone for more than a month.

“To say they’re breathing a sigh of relief is a nice way to put it,” the insider says. “They even hope that filming on the set of her movie is delayed so she misses more time.”

It seems Katherine, who has a reputation for shooting off her mouth, has been rubbing people the wrong way since filming began on season six of Grey’s Anatomy.

“Because her last film The Ugly Truth was such a big hit and she’s expecting her upcoming film, Five Killers [with Ashton Kutcher], to be just as big, she’s been rattling cages,” says an insider.

The source tells BettyConfidential that after her best friend T.R. Knight left the show last season, “Katherine’s co-stars expected her to be humbler and easier to deal with, but instead she began complaining from the start.”

Back in July, she moaned to David Letterman about having to work super-long hours on the set. “Our first day back was Wednesday and it was – I’m going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them – a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean.”

What she didn’t reveal was that the extended hours were scheduled to accommodate Katherine, so that she could take time off to promote a film. When Letterman asked her how much longer she was going to be on the show, Katherine replied, “Yeah, that’s what I keep wondering.”

But it’s not just the hours that she’s been whining about, according to the insider, Katherine was also complaining about the scripts not focusing enough on her.

“She wants the same attention that Patrick Dempsey gets in storylines, but while he schmoozes the bosses, she grates on their nerves.”

But there’s at least one person on Katherine’s side: her husband, singer Josh Kelley. When Katherine shoots off her mouth, Josh is the one who works hard to smooth things over. “Josh knows her better than anyone and can talk to her,” the insider says.

“Sometimes, Katherine thinks she’s being funny, but Josh will tell her she needs to curb her tongue.”

But it seems that a lot of the time Josh’s calming words seem to fall on deaf ears. Might we suggest a gag next time?

The insider says that Katherine has changed a lot since she joined Grey’s Anatomy back in 2005. “When Katherine first joined the show, she was a breath of fresh air,” says the insider. ‘’But by season three, she got a little too comfortable and had an opinion on everything.”

While Katherine does have some friends on the set – she recently held a baby shower for mom-to-be Ellen Pompeo – others think that considering she annoyed ABC’s entertainment president with her complaints on Letterman, she’s fortunate to still have a job on the show. “She’s lucky the show is letting her off for a month and even luckier that they are letting her come back,” the insider says. “Everyone will be a lot more relaxed on the set without her here. There won’t be as much tension.”

[From Betty Confidential]

I can’t believe Josh has the nerve to tell Dame Heigl to “curb her tongue”. Doesn’t this peasant know who she is?!? I actually find that the least believable part of the story – that Josh would at any time show a little spine, or say anything to rouse the Anger Bear Heigl. He wouldn’t dare. Heigl would cut him. And burn him with her cigarettes.

Katherine Heigl is shown shopping on 8/22/09. Credit: WENN.com

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