Eric Dane Has '24/7 Nurses' amid ALS Diagnosis, Ex Rebecca Gayheart Covers Shifts When Needed
- - Eric Dane Has '24/7 Nurses' amid ALS Diagnosis, Ex Rebecca Gayheart Covers Shifts When Needed
Cara Lynn ShultzDecember 30, 2025 at 4:24 AM
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Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane in January 2015. -
Rebecca Gayheart shared in a personal essay that she “locked in” to do battle with insurance companies to ensure home care for her ex, Eric Dane
Dane, 54, shared in April that he’d been diagnosed with the progressive disease ALS
Gayheart said she covers care shifts when a nurse isn’t available
Rebecca Gayheart went to battle with insurance companies to make sure her ex, Eric Dane, has round-the-clock care amid his ongoing struggle with ALS.
The Jawbreaker actress, 54, wrote about her caregiving experience in a deeply personal essay for The Cut, where Gayheart — who separated from the Grey’s Anatomy alum in 2018 — shared that “Eric has 24/7 nurses now.”
Dane told PEOPLE in April that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), aka Lou Gehrig's disease, a progressive degenerative disease that affects the nerve cells and leads to eventual paralysis of the muscles, per the Mayo Clinic. While there are medications that can slow its progression, there is no cure, and those with ALS slowly lose their ability to speak, eat, walk and breathe independently because the disease specifically affects nerve cells, or motor neurons, in the spine and brain.
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Rebecca Gayheart in Los Angeles in September 2025.
Gayheart has taken charge of Dane’s medical care, sharing that “just figuring out the health-care system is its own thing — the health-insurance company will deny you what you’re asking for and you have to appeal and then you have to apply again.”
She wrote that when she was trying to get home nursing care, “the woman from his insurance said to me, ‘You can keep applying, and I’ll keep denying,’ I was like, ‘Oh? F that.’ I made it my mission. I was ‘locked in,’ as the kids would say. I crashed out, and then I locked it in.”
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Gayheart — who previously described her and Dane’s dynamic as “super complicated” — refused to give up, explaining that “we got it approved after two appeals.”
The actress, who shares daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13, with the Euphoria actor, said that his care is divided into 21 shifts. “There are times that shifts aren’t covered, so I cover them. There was a 12-hour shift recently that I could not cover. I could only do four hours because of all the stuff that the kids are doing,” she explained.
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Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart in Los Angeles in June 2017.
“I had to call on two of Eric’s friends, one of them who had never really taken care of him in that way. I thought, ‘I can’t believe I had to ask someone to do this.’ And of course when I asked for help, they said, ‘Yeah, anything, what do you need? What’s going on?’ And they both showed up and did a wonderful job.”
That hasn't been the case with everyone, Gayheart explained: "There are a lot of people who used to be more present in my life who I think about and wonder, 'Where’d they go?' She shared that she's "talked to my therapist about it a lot," and realized that "most people are not great in this situation because it’s so heavy."
"It’s not easy for people," Gayheart explained. "So I don’t hold any grudges toward [anyone] who hasn’t shown up."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
