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Rebecca Gayheart was the first person Eric Dane called after his ALS diagnosis — and the actor recounted the devastating conversation in his posthumous memoir.
“It’s what we feared,” the “Grey’s Anatomy” alum told his estranged wife in 2024, according to People’s excerpt of “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments.”
Noting he didn’t “remember a single word” he uttered afterward, Dane recalled, “I remember only feeling a violent impact, like getting the wind knocked out of me.”
The “Euphoria” alum remembered Gayheart “wailing” on the other end of the phone, while he experienced “body-shudder[ing]” sobs.
Gayheart, Dane wrote, eventually said, “I’m here, we’ll fight this together, I’m not going anywhere.”
The actress, 55, shared her own perspective of the emotional chat in an interview with People, published Thursday.
“I went into my closet and closed the door,” she told the outlet, calling Dane’s words a “punch to the gut” that “took [her] breath away.”
At the time, Gayheart and Dane were separated.
“We were married for 14 years, grew apart, filed for divorce [in 2018] but never got around to signing the papers,” Dane clarified in his book, which hits shelves Nov. 3.
The former couple, who “stayed close” while co-parenting daughters Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14, spent time together despite their split, even vacationing as a family and speaking “every day.”
The exes made headlines for calling off their divorce days before Dane went public with his diagnosis in April 2025.
However, the pair dated other people.
Gayheart continued to support Dane until his death at 56 in February, and he detailed her help in his tell-all.
Dubbing the former model his “best friend,” Dane wrote, “She drops by every day, early in the morning, late at night, sometimes in the middle of the night when she knows I won’t be sleeping.”
Gayheart was the person the “Last Ship” alum went to when he needed to “talk,” “scream” or “cry.”
The “Urban Legend” star told People that if she could speak to Dane now, she’d say, “I’m going to look after [our] girls and protect them with everything in my body and soul.”