Katherine Heigl has admitted that she felt like "the biggest piece of s*** on the bottom of your shoe" after she was branded "difficult" in Hollywood.
Heigl's reputation was ruined when she had a very public falling out with Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes in 2008.
The actress offended both Rhimes and the writers of the medical drama when she refused to put her name forward for an Emmy Award because she "did not feel that I was given material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination".
A scene from the TV show Grey's Anatomy.
In a radio interview with Howard Stern overnight, Heigl tried to explain the situation.
"I wasn't feeling good about my work that season," the 37-year-old said.
"There was a part of me that thought, because I had won the year before, that I needed juicy, dramatic, emotional material and I just didn't have that that season."
Heigl said she never expected the Emmy issue to become such a big story and she tried to apologise to Shonda Rhimes.
"I went in because I was really embarrassed, so I went into Shonda and said, 'I'm so sorry, that wasn't cool. I should not have said that and I shouldn't have said anything publicly'."
It's not the only time Heigl has burned bridges though.
After starring in Knocked Up, Heigl later dissed the film in an interview with Vanity Fair by alleging it was sexist.
"It paints the women as shrews, as humourless and uptight, and it paints the men as loveable, goofy, fun-loving guys," she said at the time.
"It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you're portraying women? Ninety-eight per cent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie."
Director Judd Apatow tried to downplay Heigl's comments in 2009 and suggested they were due to exhaustion after a long day of interviews, but he's still waiting for an apology.
"(You would think) at some point I'll get a call saying, 'Sorry, I was tired ...' and then the call never comes," Apatow said.
Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen in the comedy Knocked Up.
Heigl's Knocked Up co-star, Seth Rogen, wasn't so diplomatic though.
"I didn't slip and I was doing f***ing interviews all day too ... I didn't say s**t!" Rogen said.
"I gotta say it's not like we're the only people she said some bats**t crazy things about. That's kind of her bag now."
With her reputation in tatters, Heigl told Stern that she went to therapy "because of the scrutiny and I was not handling it well".
"I was feeling completely like the biggest piece of s**t on the bottom of your shoe," she said.
"I was really struggling with it and how to not take it all really personally and not to feel like there's something really deeply wrong with me. It was very hard."
