Eric Dane is detailing the devastating effects that ALS has had on his body.
The Grey’s Anatomy alum, who shared that he’d been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—also known as Lou Gehrig‘s disease—two months ago, revealed that he has “one functioning arm” as a result of the degenerative disease that impacts the nerve cells in the brain and spine and causes progressive paralysis of the muscles.
“My left side is functioning, my right side has completely stopped working,” Dane told Diane Sawyer in an interview for Good Morning America that aired June 16. “I feel like maybe a couple more months, and I won’t have my left hand either. It’s sobering.”
The 52-year-old—who shares Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13, with wife Rebecca Gayheart—went on to detail first symptoms and the long road to receiving a diagnosis.
“I started experiencing some weakness in my right hand,” he said. “I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. I thought maybe I’d been texting too much or my hand was fatigued, but a few weeks later I noticed it got a little worse.”
“So I went and saw a hand specialist, who sent me to another hand specialist,” Dane continued. “I went and saw a neurologist and the neurologist sent me to another neurologist and said, ‘This is way above my pay grade.'”
Finally, he was informed that he had ALS, which has proven to present the Euphoria actor with a surreal reality.
“I will never forget those three letters,” Dane said. “It’s on me the second I wake up. It’s not a dream.”
After sharing that he’s “worried” about losing function in his legs, he recalled a harrowing moment during a boat trip with one of his daughters where he jumped into the water with her and realized he “couldn’t swim” anymore.
“I realized in the moment that I’m not safe in the water anymore,” Dane recalled. “She dragged me back to the boat, and I was breaking down in tears.”
He added that he “was just heartbroken” over the ordeal and has come to resent his health struggles because of how they’ll impact his daughters’ lives.
“I’m angry, because my father was taken from me when I was young,” Dane, whose father died by suicide when he was a young boy, explained, “and now there’s a very good chance I’m going to be taken from my girls while they’re very young. At the end of the day, all I want to do is spend time with my family and work a little bit, if I can.”
As for Gayheart—who filed to dismiss their 2018 divorce case in March—the actor said that his difficult last several months has only strengthened their bond.
“I call Rebecca,” Dane said tearfully when Sawyer asked who he calls during his most difficult moments. “I talk to her every day. We have managed to become better friends and better parents, and she is probably my biggest champion and my most stalwart supporter, and I lean on her.”
Keep reading for more on their relationship…
2003
Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart have never revealed how they first connected, though Dane admitted it’s “probably one of the least interesting stories in the world.”
“It went basically like this: ‘You wanna go out?'” he recalled to Flaunt magazine in 2008. “‘Yeah, sure.’ Ten months later, we were married.”
October 2004
Less than one year after they began dating, the couple exchanged vows in Las Vegas.
May 2017
After Dane announced he was leaving the TNT drama The Last Ship due to his battle with depression, Gayheart took to Instagram to show her support for her husband.
“Way back when I met my Monday man crush,” Gayheart captioned a throwback photo of the couple.
February 2018
Gayheart cited “irreconcilable differences” as the cause of the couple’s split and sought spousal support and joint legal and physical custody of their daughters Billie and Georgia when she filed for divorce.
“After 14 years together we have decided that ending our marriage is the best decision for our family,” the duo said in a joint statement to E! News at the time. “We will continue our friendship and work as a team to co-parent our two beautiful girls as they are the most important thing in the world to us.”
However, the divorce was never finalized, and Dane revealed that the pair were still friends and “great” co-parents when he told Entertainment Tonight in 2019, “We have two kids. It’s not complicated…it doesn’t have to be.”
August 2019
One decade after the couple made headlines when a nude video with former Miss Teen USA Kari Ann Peniche was published online, Dane addressed the scandal in a rare interview.
“I often think about that answer I gave. And looking back now, was it a mistake? Absolutely not,” he told Glamour of previously describing the incident as a misstep. “Three consenting adults, one of them being my wife? I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
He added that his previous comments were “most likely referring to the drug use that was alluded to in the video.”
“And was that a mistake? Again, I don’t necessarily think I was breaking any laws and corrupting anybody,” the Grey’s Anatomy alum said. “We were just three people taking a bath.”
“I didn’t regret it, I have no regrets nor do I make any apologies for my life experience,” he concluded. “It’s my life experience and I’m at peace with all of it.”
After the tape was published in 2009, the couple was forced to take action, and as a result, Dane and Gayheart filed a $1 million copyright infringement against Gawker Media and reportedly settled for upwards of six-figures.
August 2022
The pair first sparked rumors of a reconciliation when they jetted off to Europe as a family of four. The Jawbreaker actress shared snaps from the trip showing Dane making a silly face at the camera with their girls.
“This is us,” Gayheart captioned the Instagram post. “Family vacay 2022.”
In a second pic from their European adventures, the foursome posed together with big smiles on the Parisian streets, as she wrote on the ‘gram, “A pit stop in Paris!”
The group then made their way across the coast to St. Tropez, with Gayheart documenting their journey on her Instagram Stories. “My people,” she captioned a snap of the fam with a friend.
January 2023
While she filed for divorce in 2018, Dane and Gayheart kicked off the New Year as one big family.
The Euphoria actor and the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum were photographed walking hand-in-hand off a boat together during a vacation with their two daughters.
March 2025
Gayheart filed to dismiss her divorce petition, seven years after submitting the papers.
