Katherine Heigl will return to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

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Izzie Stevens isn’t dying, not that this should surprise anyone.

Although ABC and ABC Studios won’t officially declare that Katherine Heigl will return for a full season next year, sources close to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ said today that the actress will return to the medical show for the last year of her contract.

When viewers last saw Izzie, she was enticing her BFF, George (T.R. Knight), to join her in what was presumably the last elevator ride of both their lives since Izzie has terminal cancer and George got hit by a bus. Well, the elevator appears to have saved Izzie, but George, not so much.

On Wednesday, the rumors that Knight has parted ways with the show raced through the blogosphere, but no one associated with the show or with Knight confirmed it. Actress Melissa George, who guest-starred in the series last season, reportedly told Us Magazine that Knight indeed has quit the show at an event Wednesday at Whitney Contemporaries Art Party and Auction in New York City.

Knight and Heigl, who are close friends off the set, have been rumored for months to be exiting the show -- rumors whose shelf life was extended by the producers’ decision to leave the lives of their characters hanging in the balance all summer, as if their fates could really be kept secret.

-- Maria Elena Fernandez

--Photo: Heigl & Knight on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’/Credit: ABC