What To Know
- Rebecca Gayheart discussed the challenges of supporting her two daughters and maintaining a positive co-parenting relationship with her estranged husband, Eric Dane, following his ALS diagnosis.
- She emphasized the importance of showing up for family during difficult times and modeling resilience and grace for her children.
- Gayheart shared that she is focused on facilitating quality time between her daughters and Dane.
Rebecca Gayheart has opened up about her experience supporting her children and their relationship with her estranged husband, Eric Dane, amid his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis.
She appeared on Broad Ideas With Rachel Bilson & Olivia Allen on a podcast episode published Monday (November 17) and revealed the details about how she is working to nurture her two children, Billie, 15, and Georgia Geraldine, 13, as their father endures the progressive nervous system disease.
The actress, who married the Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria star in 2004 and had two children with him, filed for divorce in 2018 but withdrew her divorce filing in March 2025 ahead of Dane revealing his illness that April. Since then, she explained, she has been working with Dane to ensure his children have as much time with him as they can.
“It’s been extremely tricky to figure out how to handle it all,” she said. “They’re having such complex feelings about it all, and because it’s public, it confuses them, especially when certain things don’t align with what they’re seeing, but what’s actually happening? Yeah, it’s very complicated. It’s very complicated.”
When prompted by the cohosts of the show to talk about how she’s been publicly supporting Dane amid his illness, she said, “I am definitely trying to show them that we show up for people, no matter what, and he is our family. ‘He is your father.’ And, yeah, we show up and we try to do it with some dignity and some grace and just get through it, and that we will get through it the best we can.”
Gayheart went on to explain that it’s even more “complicated” for her, since she and Dane have been split up for the better part of a decade.
“We’ve been separated for eight years. The kids live with me 100% of the time. And you know, there’s been lots of just other stuff,” she said. “I try to stay optimistic, though, about it all. I’m trying to learn from it and role model for them how to go through something like this, which is really hard, and I don’t know if I’m doing it well or if I’m doing it in the wrong way or the right way. I’m just showing up. I’m showing up, and I’m trying to be there for them. And I guess time will tell, right?”
Gayheart said that their shared daughters are “good girls who are just going through a lot” and added, “It’s like it is life on life’s terms, it really is.”
The actress also said that she is “experiencing growth as a person” throughout the journey and hopes the lesson her kids take away is that life is full of ups and downs. “One piece of this that I hope I’m passing to my kids is the idea that you can show up for someone and be there for them, but you also have to show up for yourself, and that this is life. Life, sadly, is just moments good and bad strung together. There’s going to be good ones, there’s going to be bad ones, there’s going to be exciting ones… You never know what you’re going to get, and we should treat today as a really special day. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is it, right? Whatever we’re doing today, this is our life.”
“This one is particularly difficult because I just want to make sure I provide them with the opportunity to spend time with him, so that they don’t ever look back and go, ‘I wish I would have spent time with my dad,’” she also said in the discussion. “I really want to make sure I can help facilitate that stuff for them, which is what I’m doing.”
Dane, after announcing his diagnosis, opened up about his experience with ALS, saying that the symptoms included having his right side become “completely” non-functional. In the same interview, he credited Gayheart with being a major support system for him, saying, ”
“I call Rebecca [when it hits me hard]. I talk to her every day. We have managed to become better friends and better parents, and she is probably my biggest champion and most stalwart supporter. I lean on her.”
Dane will next be seen on screen in an episode of Brilliant Minds wherein his diagnosis will be part of his character’s storyline.
Watch Rebecca Gayheart’s full podcast appearance below.