Eric Dane’s estranged wife Rebecca Gayheart shares rare insight into late actor’s final days
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Eric Dane’s estranged wife Rebecca Gayheart has revealed how the late actor spent his final days before his death earlier this year.
Dane died of respiratory failure related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) on February 19. He was 53.
Rebecca Gayheart opens up about Eric Dane's final days
Now, Gayheart has shared with PEOPLE that she and her daughters — Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14 — “tried to be present through all of our fear and frustration and uncertainty.”
“It was truly an exhausting and heartbreaking experience, but it also showed us his extraordinary strength every day. That was really wonderful for the girls and myself to witness,” she said.
The late actor and Gayheart tied the knot in 2004 and went on to welcome Billie in 2010 and Georgia in 2011. After 14 years of marriage, in 2018, the 55-year-old model filed for divorce. However, the divorce was never finalized as Gayheart requested to dismiss the petition in March 2025.
Rebecca Gayheart says she's 'grateful' Eric Dane wrote his memoir
The ‘Jawbreaker’ actress’ remarks come before the release of Dane’s posthumous memoir ‘My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments’, which will be available on shelves from November 3.
As per her, ‘The Last Ship’ star was hesitant to write his memoir, but Gayheart is now “grateful he did, because it gives my girls the opportunity to know their dad as a human being.”
Eric Dane shared details about his ALS diagnosis in memoir
PEOPLE earlier released an excerpt from Dane’s book, which mentions that on January 7, 2024, he first noticed symptoms of his fatal disease.
“I’m eating sushi with my kids and suddenly I can’t work the chopsticks with my right hand. My hand tingles, and then my fingers feel numb. Some kind of weird nerve thing, I think. I shake it off. I’m probably texting too much. Three weeks later, it happens again, only worse. I can’t grip the chopsticks at all,” he wrote.
The ‘Euphoria’ actor eventually found his answers nine months after the first sign and immediately called Gayheart.
Dane told her, “It’s what we feared."
He further added in his book, "I don’t remember a single word I said after that. I remember only feeling a violent impact, like getting the wind knocked out of me, and Rebecca wailing on the other end of the phone, and then I really lose it, and my sobs make my body shudder, and I hear her words pouring out amid her tears, ‘I’m here, we’ll fight this together, I’m not going anywhere.’”
