Rebecca Gayheart opened up about her late husband Eric Dane’s final moments. She and their two daughters were by the actor’s side when he died in February.
“He was surrounded by the girls and I, the last days, hours, minutes of his life … that was something so difficult but also really important,” Gayheart said in a new interview with People.
Eric Dane attends the “Countdown” Premiere and After-Party on June 18, 2025 in Los Angeles.
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The actress said if she could talk to Dane, she would want to tell him how proud she was of him, and that she and their family are not going to let others forget about him.
Dane died in February following a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a degenerative neurological disorder that currently has no cure. The actor, of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Euphoria” fame, was 53.
Despite separating from Dane after 14 years of marriage, Gayheart and Dane remained close and never divorced. They co-parented their teen daughters Billie and Georgia.
Eric Dane, Billie Beatrice Dane, Rebecca Gayheart-Dane and Georgia Dane attend the 16th Annual Chrysalis Butterfly Ball on June 03, 2017 in Brentwood, California.
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Gayheart said Dane’s final two years were especially challenging, recalling the day when he called her to tell her about his ALS diagnosis.
“I went into my closet and closed the door,” Gayheart said. “I was always telling him, ‘You’re going to be OK. We’re going to figure this out.’ But that day was like a punch in the gut. It took my breath away.”
Gayheart also said she and Dane sought the help of their family therapist and all of them sat down together with Billie and Georgia to share the devastating news. According to Gayheart, Dane let his daughters “know he wanted to try to spend as much time as possible with them.”
They would go on to enjoy sushi lunches, attend dance recitals and watch movies together, determined to be a family through it all.
“We tried to be present through all our fear and frustration and uncertainty,” Gayheart said. “It was truly an exhausting and heartbreaking experience but it also showed us his extraordinary strength every day.”
Dane also shared his own experience in an upcoming posthumous memoir, “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” coming out in November.
“We leave our marriage but we don’t leave our family,” Dane wrote of he and Gayheart’s journey, adding that after he was diagnosed with ALS, “Rebecca not only shows up. She remains my best friend. … She’s the one I go to when I need to talk, when I need to scream, when I need to cry.”
Gayheart says she’s “grateful” Dane wrote his memoir because it gives their daughters “the opportunity to know him as a human being.”