Nov. 09--"Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes said she was settling into a first-class seat on a flight to New York when she realized her weight was affecting her life.
"I took off my shoes, I pulled out my book, I went to buckle the seat belt and it wouldn't buckle, and I thought to myself, 'Well, something's wrong with the seat belt. It's broken,'" she told Ellen DeGeneres in an episode of "Ellen" that aired Monday afternoon.
"And it wasn't the seat belt, it was me. And I thought well, I can get a seat belt extender ... or I could die and not have a seat belt extender and maybe the plane will crash or I fly out of my seat when we take off, and I decided that I would risk it and just fly out of my seat because I wasn't going to say anything."
Rhimes, who grew up in the south suburbs and attended high school in Chicago Heights, recently said she lost more than 100 pounds, in part because of her new philosophy to say "yes" to everything to overcome her shyness in social situations.
Rhimes, also an executive producer of "How to Get Away with Murder," describes living her mantra in her new book "Year of Yes," due out Tuesday.
