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Rebecca Gayheart is reminiscing about her final days with Eric Dane.
For those unaware, Dane passed away from respiratory failure with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), listed as the underlying cause of death at the age of 53 on February 19, 2026. In 2024, he was officially diagnosed with ALS after he noticed early symptoms like right-hand weakness earlier that year.
On Tuesday, November 3, the 55-year-old American actress and model, who tied the knot with Dane in 2004, appeared on the Today show to promote his posthumous memoir, My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments.
While conversing with the hosts, the Urban Legend actress stated that she and their daughters, Billie and Georgia, never had this thought in their wildest dreams that he was about to leave the world soon.
Gayheart said, “He had gone to the hospital so many times before, and they would patch him up, so to speak, and he would come home. And he’d be okay. And we’d go back to the normal routine, which did change week by week.”
“I had no idea that that was it, that that week was going to be our last week. And 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. Everything shifted,” including “the tone of when the doctors were talking to us, and some of the information we were given.”
“He was fully aware it was shifting, and he was still communicating with us. Not well verbally, but I could understand him most of the time. The kids could most of the time, his closest friends,” Rebecca Gayheart explained, stating that Dane knew he was dying and “was figuring it out as we went.”
It is pertinent to mention that Eric Dane’s posthumous memoir, My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments, was published on November 3, 2026, by The Open Field.
