{"id":904573,"date":"2026-11-03T16:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/904573\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T16:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T16:10:09","slug":"rebecca-gayheart-details-eric-danes-final-week-of-life-had-no-idea-that-was-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/904573\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Gayheart details Eric Dane\u2019s final week of life: \u2018Had no idea that was it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Gayheart has opened up about the final days of husband Eric Dane\u2019s life, from family sleepovers in his room to having \u201cno idea that was it\u201d during his last trip to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Dane died at 53<\/a> in February, less than one year after publicly announcing<\/a> he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).<\/p>\n

Gayheart, 55, spoke with NBC special correspondent Maria Shriver on TODAY Nov. 3, the release day for Dane\u2019s posthumous memoir, \u201cMy Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments.\u201d The actor shared how she and their two daughters<\/a> \u201cnever, ever anticipated\u201d that they would lose him in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had gone to the hospital so many times before, and they would patch him up, so to speak, and he would come home,\u201d Gayheart said. \u201cAnd he\u2019d be OK. And we\u2019d go back to the normal routine, which did change week by week.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalled the first day of Dane\u2019s final trip to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Listen, I\u2019ll be back. I have a dinner. I\u2019m going to this event.\u2019 I had no idea that that was it, that that week was going to be our last week,\u201d Gayheart said. \u201cAnd nor did my daughters. It really took a few days for us to understand the gravity of what that last trip to the hospital meant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gayheart and Dane married in 2004 and filed for divorce in 2018. Gayheart filed to have the divorce dismissed in 2025. They co-parented their daughters<\/a>, and she was by his bedside in his final week.<\/p>\n

The actor and model and their daughters, Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14, began to realize the gravity of the situation after a couple of days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was like day three in the hospital where it shifted,\u201d Gayheart said. \u201cEverything shifted. Just the tone of when the doctors were talking to us, and some of the information we were given.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dane also recognized how serious things were getting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was fully aware it was shifting, and he was still communicating with us,\u201d Gayheart said. \u201cNot well verbally, but I could understand him most of the time. The kids could most of the time, his closest friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends of the couple who are doctors helped Gayheart navigate that emotional time, during which she said she suffered from \u201cdecision fatigue.\u201d She said Dane knew he was dying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was figuring it out as we went,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I remember the moment Eric decided to make some choices, and he did. … He was in control of the way he was going to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

To comfort the \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d and \u201cEuphoria\u201d actor in his final days, Gayheart and their daughters conducted their usual family sleepover in Dane\u2019s hospital room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girls and I just camped out there with him, and we had our family sleepovers,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we brought in those little candles that aren\u2019t real candles. They have batteries. And we played his favorite music, and we tried to make it as nice as you can be in the hospital room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gayheart was unprepared for how swiftly the end came.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people will say, \u2018Well, at least you knew, and you could have those last conversations,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t know, because there is no road map. No one can tell you what the journey looks like because it\u2019s so different for every patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was becoming more alive mentally, but losing all of his physical abilities. And for the girls, that was really hard to watch as well. But overall, it\u2019s a blur, because it was just so overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wide-ranging conversation, Gayheart also spoke to Shriver about Dane\u2019s posthumous book, his decision to go public about his ALS diagnosis, her struggles in becoming a caregiver, the moment she found out he had ALS and how their daughters are faring in the wake of his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe became a different person in a way,\u201d Gayheart said. \u201cHe really valued his life suddenly, and every minute of how he was going to spend his life and what he was going to do with his days.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rebecca Gayheart has opened up about the final days of husband Eric Dane\u2019s life, from family sleepovers in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-904573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}