Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane Were ‘Weeping’ After He Shared ALS News: ‘I Couldn’t Process It’

Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane were both emotional after he told her about his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis.

In an essay for The Cut, published on Monday, December 29, the Jawbreaker actress, 54, recalled the heartbreaking moment the Grey’s Anatomy alum, 53 — with whom she shares daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13 — broke the devastating news to her.

“I was in my closet the day I heard those three letters: ALS,” Gayheart shared. “Eric called me from the doctor’s office in San Francisco; he’d flown down to see a neurologist there.”

“When he told me that day, he just started weeping, as did I. It didn’t feel real because he was still okay,” the former model explained. “I was here at home with my youngest daughter — my home, that I share with just the girls, since Eric and I separated in September 2017 — and I’d gone into my closet to take the call, trying to be private.”

“She was saying, ‘Mommy, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ I tried telling her, ‘Honey, nothing. Everything’s fine,’ because I couldn’t process it,” Gayheart admitted. “I didn’t know all the details like I do now, but I knew enough about ALS to know that there wasn’t a cure.”

Gayheart noted that she and the Euphoria actor told their daughters “about a week” later, as they “wanted to have complete transparency and honesty with them.” Dane later came forward with his diagnosis to the world in April.

The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum wed Dane in 2004, but in 2018, she filed for divorce. However, she requested that the court dismiss the filing in March of 2025, according to court documents obtained by People, but the pair are not romantically together.