Eric Dane had the full support of his family as he battled ALS before his death.
“I have been diagnosed with ALS,” the Grey’s Anatomy alum announced in a statement to People at the time, sharing his health battle with the world. “I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter.”
He continued, “I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working and am looking forward to returning to the set of Euphoria next week. I kindly ask that you give my family and I privacy during this time.”
Dane and his estranged wife, Rebecca Gayheart, share daughters Billie and Georgia. Though he and Gayheart have kept their daughter’s reaction to his diagnosis relatively private, Gayheart did share a slight insight into how the illness is impacting their children.
“My girls are really suffering, and we’re just trying to get through it,” she told People in September 2025. “It’s a tough time.”
Dane died at age 53 in February 2026.
Keep scrolling to read what Dane’s family has said about his ALS diagnosis.
His Daughters Were ‘Really Suffering’
In a September 2025 interview with People, Gayheart admitted that Billie and Georgia are “really struggling” with their dad’s diagnosis.
“We have some professional therapists who are helping us, and we’re just trying to have some hope and do it with dignity, grace and love,” Gayheart told the outlet at the time. “I mean, it’s heartbreaking. My girls are really suffering, and we’re just trying to get through it. It’s a tough time.”
Adults Tried to Contact His Daughters
During an appearance on the “Broad Ideas” podcast in November 2025, Gayheart also noted that adults have attempted to reach out to Billie and Georgia via social media about Dane’s diagnosis — and she’s not a fan of the behavior.
“Adults are reaching out,” she explained. “Sending them messages or trying to follow them because they have private accounts. I don’t know how nefarious it is, but I just stop it.”
She continued: “Adults should never reach out to children. That’s all I know, period. But it’ll be disguised as, you know, ‘Oh I’m just checking in because I love your dad and I just want to make sure.’ I’m like, ‘That’s an adult? Stop.’ It’s a stranger, it’s an adult, you don’t need to speak to them.”
His Daughters Live with Rebecca Gayheart
In the same “Broad Ideas” interview, Gayheart also revealed how she speaks to the pair’s daughters about their dad. Gayheart and Dane were separated, though the actress retracted her 2018 divorce filing in March 2025.
“He is our family. He is your father,” Gayheart said of how she speaks to her girls about their relationship. “We show up, and we try to do it with some dignity and some grace and just get through it.”
“We’ve been separated for eight years. The kids live with me 100 percent of the time. There’s been lots of just stuff, other stuff,” she added. “I try to stay optimistic, though, about it all. I’m trying to learn from it and [be a] role model for them [for] how to go through something like this, which is really hard.”
She also admitted, “I don’t know if I’m doing it well or if I’m doing it in the wrong way or the right way. I’m just showing up. I’m showing up, and I’m trying to be there for them. I guess time will tell.”
Rebecca Gayheart Shared Her Perspective on Eric Dane’s ALS Diagnosis
In a December 2025 essay for The Cut, Gayheart gave her perspective on Dane’s diagnosis, sharing how his journey with the disease had affected her and their daughters.
“The problem with this diagnosis is that there really isn’t a road map. Someone can tell you, ‘OK, this is what you have, and you’re having some weakness in your right arm,’ but what’s to come?” she said. “They can’t really lay that out for you very well; instead, they’re like, ‘We’ll see you in three months.’ No matter how prepared you are, or how much I prepare the girls, or how much Eric prepares himself, he’ll wake up one morning and there’s something else that is an obstacle, or he’s lost the ability to do one more thing — it just comes out of nowhere.”
Gayheart continued, “It’s a terrible, terrible disease. I think it took probably six months to wrap our heads around it and to realize what it actually meant and the changes that were starting to come pretty rapidly.”
Gayheart also revealed that Dane’s diagnosis “changed [her] approach to everything.”
“Even with strangers, sometimes I’ll be standing [in] line to get my coffee and I’ll just look at them and go, ‘I wonder what they’re going through.’ Because I know everyone is going through something,” she explained.
Though Gayheart said she has tried to “stay in the moment,” she admitted that she couldn’t help but wonder about her family’s future.
“I worry so much about my girls losing their father — they’re going through this while experiencing all the pressures that are put on young girls, and I want to do everything in my power to give them the tools they’ll need,” she continued. “They will be different because of this. I know that. One thing I’ve realized, and this is something I’m working on, is that I spend so much time navigating everyone else’s emotions around this, I haven’t really sat down and investigated how I feel about things. I’ve just been going, going, going, one foot in front of the other.”
Gayheart added that she also had moments where she felt a “glimmer of hope.”
“Like, I keep thinking, ‘Well, with AI medical research moving quickly, there’s a very small chance, but there is a chance, that maybe they could find a medication that could halt ALS.’ I still have that in me,” she explained. “But sometimes I say to myself, ‘Why am I letting myself have that hope when it doesn’t feel realistic?’ It all feels like I’m walking on one of those bridges that are made out of ropes, and it’s just going on forever and I’m never gonna get to the other side.”
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