Eric Dane had been candid about his health over the years, including his ALS diagnosis.
The Grey’s Anatomy and Charmed alum announced the news of his diagnosis in April 2025 in a statement to People. “I have been diagnosed with ALS. I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter,” Dane, 52, said.
The Euphoria star, who shared daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13, with wife Rebecca Gayheart, died at age 53 in February 2026.
Scroll down to read what Dane has said in the past about his health:
Celebrity Health Scares Through the Years
ALS
Dane shared news of his ALS diagnosis on April 10, 2025, noting that he was fortunate to continue working, including filming Euphoria season 3.
“I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working and am looking forward to returning to set of Euphoria next week,” he said in a statement to People. “I kindly ask that you give my family and I privacy during this time.”
After announcing his diagnosis, the actor was spotted out and photographed on a number of occasions in Los Angeles.
In June 2025, he sat down for an emotional discussion with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, his first TV interview since announcing his diagnosis. In a preview of the interview shared on the show’s Facebook account, Dane said, “I wake up every day and I’m immediately reminded that this is happening. It’s not a dream.”
“I don’t think this is the end of my story. I don’t feel like this is the end of me,” he added.
Dane remembered the first time he noticed symptoms, saying he felt “weakness in my right hand.” As of the broadcast, he lost the function of his body’s right side. “I have one functioning arm. … It’s sobering,” he admitted.
In an interview with Variety in the same month, Dane shared his vision for his acting career after his diagnosis, sharing that he had multiple projects in the works.
“I am ready and willing to do just about anything, but I have limitations that I understand will preclude me from playing certain roles. I’m working on Euphoria,” he said. “I finished [the Amazon Prime series] Countdown. As far as that goes, I’m pretty capable.”
Dane died in February 2026 after his battle with ALS.
Sobriety
In July 2011, while starring on Grey’s, Dane’s representative told E! News that he had recently “voluntarily checked himself into a treatment facility to help him get off of pain medication that he was prescribed for a sports injury that he suffered over the recent hiatus.”
Dane reflected on his sobriety journey in a June 2024 interview on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, admitting, “If you take the whole eight years I was on Grey’s Anatomy, I was f***** up longer than I was sober and that was when things started going sideways for me.”
Dane said that he was sober for three or four years before joining Grey’s in 2006, but eventually fell off the wagon as he struggled with the sudden fame that came with his famous role as McSteamy, as well as body image issues.
“It was overwhelming, and I think I just wanted to pretend that it wasn’t and that I was comfortable with it. Act like you’ve been there but you haven’t been there,” he said, per the Daily Mail.
In the same interview, Dane revealed, “I didn’t leave so much as I think I was let go,” referring to his 2012 exit from Grey’s Anatomy at the beginning of season 9. “I was struggling. They didn’t let me go because of that, although it definitely didn’t help,” he admitted.
Celebrities Who Have Battled ALS: Eric Dane, Stephen Hawking and More
Depression
In April 2017, Dane’s representative confirmed that production on his TNT drama, The Last Ship, had halted while the actor dealt with depression.
“Eric asked for a break to deal with personal issues. He suffers from depression and has asked for a few weeks of downtime and the producers kindly granted that request. He looks forward to returning,” his rep told Variety at the time.
In July that same year, Dane opened up about his mental health struggles in an interview on the Today show.
“I took some time off — I was dealing with some depression, which was kind of odd to me,” he said, per People. “I felt very conflicted about it because I didn’t really feel like I had anything to be depressed about.”
“That was a scary thing, when you wake up and you’re like: ‘I don’t want to get out of bed,’” he explained. “I was seeing these doctors thinking that there was something physically wrong with me, because I’d never felt like that.”
“I mean, I’d dealt with depression throughout my life, but it was always manageable,” Dane added. “I just felt like, you know, everybody kind of feels a little blue. But this just hit me like a truck. I had to take some time off — I went away, I took care of it, and I’m feeling great.”
Dane advised fans to “listen to your body,” adding, “It’s a very serious thing. Like I said, I felt very conflicted because I couldn’t figure out what I was depressed about. But it’s very real.”
‘A Person Living With ALS’
Dane showed the progression of his disease in a video shared via Instagram in September 2025.
“I’m Eric. An actor, a father and now a person living with ALS,” he said, speaking slowly and with a bit of a slur. At times, his arms could be seen twitching. “For over a century, ALS has been incurable, and we’re done accepting the status quo. We need the fastest path to a cure and that’s why I partnered with I AM ALS on the Push for Progress. Our goal? A billion dollars over the next three years.”
Dane continued, “Together, we’ll renew the landmark law ACT for ALS, get promising treatments to thousands of patients like me. And finally, finally push towards ending this disease. There’s so much to learn. More to do and we have to do it now.”
In November 2025, Dane played a firefighter with ALS on an episode of NBC drama Brilliant Minds, after which he said he’d only be playing “ALS-centric” roles going forward.
“I am fairly limited in what I can do physically as an actor, but I still have my brain and I still have my speech. So I am willing to do just about anything. I’ll take on a role. But I think from here on out, it’s going to have to be ALS-centric,” Dane said during a December 2025 virtual panel discussion hosted by advocacy organization I AM ALS. “It’s going to be very difficult for me to play any other role where … you know, look at the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and I’m fine with that. I’m grateful that I can still work in any capacity.”
Dane also vowed to continue to his platform to advocate for people with ALS.
“I’m not about to concede my purpose to some disease. I just am not capable of doing that,” he said.
“I have no reason to be in a good spirit at any time, on any given day. I don’t think anybody would blame me if I went upstairs in my bedroom, crawled under the sheets, and spent the next two weeks crying,” he continued. “[But] I think it’s imperative that I share my journey with as many people as I can because I don’t feel like my life is about me anymore. And it’s something I’ve had to wrestle with because I’m a pretty selfish person, and I’d love for my life to be all about me, but I just can’t. I don’t think I’d be able to move forward if that were the case.”
Dane added, “But this is such a big deal to me to make sure that people are aware of what ALS is and what it’s about, and more importantly, what we can do to combat it and improve the landscape. Because it’s so rocky and littered with hurdles and bureaucracy and all this other nonsense that we’re trying to sift through so we can get to a place where we can start working on solutions.”
