- Footage of "
Grey's Anatomy " starJesse Williams naked onstage leaked on Monday. - "It's a body," Williams said on Monday's "WWHL" when asked if he was nervous to appear nude in "
Take Me Out ."
Jesse Williams spoke about appearing nude on stage in his Broadway debut on the same day that video footage and photos of him naked were leaked online.
In response to a question about nerves from "Watch What Happens Live" host Andy Cohen on Monday's show, which appears to have been filmed before the leak became public, Williams said, "Everybody makes such a big deal. It's a body...once you see it you realize...whatever. It's a body."
As reported by the New York Post, leaked pictures and video of Williams naked during a shower scene in "Take Me Out" surfaced Monday. The NSFW site GayBlog.ca appears to have been the first to publish the footage.
Williams was also nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the play the same day as the leak.
Representatives for Williams and "Take Me Out" didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
"Take Me Out" opened last month at Second Stage's Helen Hayes Theater in New York City, where filming performances is strictly prohibited. The theater takes extreme measures to protect actors' privacy, requiring patrons to secure their phones in Yondr pouches before taking their seats in an attempt to prevent photography.
Williams plays the fictional Darren Lemming in the play. He's a major league baseball superstar grappling with the unexpected reaction his colleagues and friends have when he suddenly comes out as gay. "As the Empires struggle to rally toward a championship season, the players and their fans begin to question tradition, their loyalties, and the price of victory," Second Stage's synopsis reads.
The "Cabin in the Woods" star noted on "Watch What Happens Live" that people's shock about the fact that he's fully nude in "Take Me Out" has been going on for a long time because the production was delayed during COVID-19.
He said he's had "two years of everybody around me going, 'are you serious? Are you sure? Nude, nude? Naked, naked?'"
The nudity occurs at a very intense moment in the play, so Williams said on "WWHL," "A non-reaction is an interesting reaction, you know? The quiet."
As much as he tries not to make a big deal about the scene, the "Grey's Anatomy" star admitted that sometimes the audience response "creates a lot of insecurity" for him.
"I'm told it's quite insane," Williams told Cohen of his decision to appear naked in his
He also said he changed his mind about wanting to know if his family and friends are in the audience before the show. "I realized I don't want to know, absolutely not," he said.
Ellen Pompeo was nervous to see Williams naked
Williams wasn't aware when his former "Grey's Anatomy" costars Ellen Pompeo and Debbie Allen came to see a performance, though Pompeo previously said on her podcast "Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo" that she was nervous to attend the show because of the nudity.
Pompeo told her guest, comedian Ms. Pat (whose full name is Patricia Williams), on an April episode that she's "not really trying to find out" what Williams looks like naked.
She even discussed it with Allen before they went. "I was like, 'what are we gonna do? How are we gonna go see this show?'" Pompeo recalled of her conversation with Allen. "'Cause you want good seats but you want to be up close, but if he's gonna be naked on stage we don't want to be up close."
"I have to go support my friend," she said.
Pompeo told Insider in November that Williams is "like a brother" to her and that she wanted to be "super supportive of all of his new things," including "Take Me Out."
But she also supports a "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff featuring Williams and his former on-screen love interest, Sarah Drew, if they want to pursue it in the future.
"I know people love 'Japril,'" she told Insider. "Sarah Drew and Jesse are both great to watch, but whatever Jesse wants and whatever Sarah wants, if they wanted to do it, then I would be so happy for the fans. I get it. I'd watch it."
In April, it was reported that Drew and Williams would return to ABC's hit medical drama as Jackson Avery and April Kepner for the season 18 finale, which is also the 400th episode of "Grey's Anatomy."