Eric Dane is opening up about why he was absent from the 2025 Emmy Awards, where he had been scheduled to appear alongside his Grey’s Anatomy co-star Jesse Williams. The actor, 52, was slated to present an award at the Sept. 14 ceremony, but a sudden accident kept him away from the stage — one he now reveals was directly tied to his ongoing battle with ALS.
In a candid interview with The Washington Post, Dane explained that just hours before the event, he fell in his kitchen and was rushed to the hospital to receive stitches. “I was getting stitches put in my head,” he recalled. “ALS is a nasty disease. I missed an opportunity I was really looking forward to.”
Dane admitted the disappointment still lingers. “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 it would have been a special moment,” he said. “So I was really upset about it, but there was nothing I could do.”
The actor revealed in April that he had been diagnosed with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease with no known cure. Since sharing the news publicly, Dane and his family — wife Rebecca Gayheart and their daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13 — have been navigating the difficult new reality together.
Gayheart, who married Dane in 2004 and reconciled with him last year after previously filing for divorce in 2018, recently shared how the family has been coping. Speaking at Step Up’s 2025 Inspiration Awards, she described the toll his illness has taken on their daughters.
“I mean, it’s heartbreaking. My girls are really suffering, and we’re just trying to get through it. It’s a tough time,” Gayheart said, adding that they are “taking it day by day” with the support of professional therapists. “We’re just trying to have some hope and do it with dignity, grace and love.”
She acknowledged that she’s not yet at a point where she can find comfort in the situation. “I’m not at a place yet where I can pull out a positive nugget. I’m not there yet,” she admitted. Still, she emphasized that the struggle has brought their family closer together. “Eric will always be my family, whether we’re married or not, or living in the same house or not. But yeah, we are closer, though we don’t like the reason why. It’s a horrible disease, and I wish there was a cure. I hope they find one soon, because it is just so sad.”
Despite the challenges, Dane has remained committed to advocacy work. He recently joined I AM ALS, a nonprofit focused on awareness and research, in Washington, D.C. as part of a campaign to raise $1 billion over the next three years. In a TikTok video shared by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Dane spoke about the barriers many ALS patients face in securing timely diagnoses.
“ALS is the last thing they want to diagnose anybody with,” he said. “So often, it takes all this time for these people to be diagnosed, and then it precludes them from being part of these clinical trials. That’s why ACT for ALS is so great — it broadens the access for everybody.”
For Dane, the fight is personal and deeply tied to his hopes for his family. “I have two daughters at home. I want to see them graduate college, get married, and maybe have grandkids. I want to be there for all that,” he said. “So I’m going to fight to the last breath on this one.”
