Eric Dane’s wife reveals the warning sign she spotted months before Grey’s Anatomy star’s devastating ALS diagnosis
Rebecca Gayheart has opened up about the subtle changes she noticed in the late actor’s health, as his posthumous memoir reveals a lengthy struggle to obtain the correct diagnosis and the couple’s decision to keep their family together despite separating.
Rebecca Gayheart has revealed her estranged husband Eric Dane began suffering unusual headaches months before developing the muscle weakness that eventually led to his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.
The 55-year-old actress, who shares two daughters with the late Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria star, discussed the early symptoms during an appearance on Drew Barrymore’s Personal Spaces on Wednesday (04.11.26.)
Eric died in February after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2024, and Rebecca has now said she had initially been struck by his complaints of headaches because he had never previously experienced them during their relationship.
Speaking to Drew Barrymore, 51, Rebecca said: “He never once had a headache for all the years we were married or dated.”
She explained Eric had started “complaining about” headaches “a few months” before he began experiencing weakness in his hand.
Rebecca recalled: “I was like, ‘Eric, you never get headaches. You’ve never taken an Advil. What are you talking about a headache? You don’t have a headache'.”
At the time, Eric believed he had “slept on [his] neck funny” and did not initially consider the headaches to be a sign of a serious medical condition.
Rebecca said: “That continued. That was apart of it. So there were definitely signs, but nothing was so major that you would really stop and pay attention to it.”
Headaches are not generally considered a characteristic early symptom of ALS, a progressive neurological condition that affects the nerve cells controlling voluntary muscle movement.
Eric, who died aged 53, also described his first experience of muscle weakness in his posthumously published memoir, My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments.
The book recounts the actor’s attempts to understand the symptoms that eventually led to his diagnosis.
Eric wrote that he first became concerned while eating sushi when he unexpectedly struggled to hold chopsticks.
He recalled: “Suddenly I can’t work the chopsticks with my right hand.”
Eric added: “My hand tingles, and then my fingers feel numb.”
Initially, the actor attributed the problem to everyday activities, believing he had been “texting too much”.
However, his symptoms continued to worsen over the following weeks.
He wrote that three weeks later the weakness had become “worse”, leaving him unable to “grip the chopsticks at all”.
Eric subsequently underwent months of medical investigations as doctors attempted to establish the cause of his deteriorating muscle function.
In his memoir, he described being “shuttled from doctor to doctor and under[going] a battery of tests”.
He was initially diagnosed with multifocal motor neuropathy, a rare autoimmune condition that can cause progressive muscle weakness and may respond to treatment.
Eric wrote that doctors had initially been optimistic about his prospects because treatment for the condition was considered highly effective.
However, when his symptoms failed to improve, his medical team became concerned that another neurological condition could be responsible.
He subsequently underwent further investigations, including a lumbar puncture, examination of his spinal fluid and brain scans.
Nine months after his initial symptoms, Eric was diagnosed with ALS.
