Eric Dane missed a planned reunion with Grey’s Anatomy costar Jesse Williams on stage at the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards, and now the actor has explained his absence.
In a new interview with The Washington Post about his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis and his advocacy for ALS research, Dane said he lost his balance and fell in his kitchen just before the awards show and needed stitches.
“ALS is a nasty disease,” he said. “So I was in the hospital during the Emmys getting stitches put in my head. I missed an opportunity I was really looking forward to. It would have been great to see Jesse and get reunited with some of my peers, and to be able to present in front of my colleagues I thought would have been a special moment. So I was really upset about it, but you know, there was nothing I could do about it.”
Dan Tate Jr., a fellow ALS patient and advocate, told the Post that Dane was in Washington, D.C., two days later to talk to lawmakers about reauthorizing the Accelerating Access for Critical Therapies for ALS Act, currently set to expire in September 2026.
And the Countdown star’s interview with the newspaper came just before he headed back to Capitol Hill to speak with more members of Congress about ALS, with which he was diagnosed last year.
“I have been an open book about certain things in my life. This is something I felt compelled to share with people,” he said. “I don’t really have a dog in the fight, per se, when it comes to worrying about what people are going to think about me. This is more of a: ‘How can I help? How can I be of some service?’ Not to be overly morbid, but you know, if I’m going out, I’m gonna go out helping somebody.”