Eric Dane: Tragic Details About The Grey's Anatomy And Euphoria Star

The following article includes discussions of suicide, mental health, and addiction.

Eric Dane's personal life experiences compelled him to portray the dubious Cal Jacobs in "Euphoria" because he saw them reflected in the character's arc. The public may not have seen it when he burst onto the scene as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan in "Grey's Anatomy," but Dane has faced many demons. "I've certainly had my struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health, and I know what it's like to have to put up a facade and have an external experience not match the internal experience," he told Glamour in 2019.

But the dark reasons Dane had for so easily relating to his "Euphoria" character weren't the end of his experience with tragedy. A few years after the interview, Dane joined the list of celebrities who faced health crises in 2025, announcing in April that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the neurodegenerative condition affects the muscles and can prevent the body from moving, speaking, and breathing properly.

After diagnosis, patients generally have only between two and five years to live. But not all. Stephen Hawking lived another 55 years after being diagnosed at age 21. Dane hopes to do the same. "I have two daughters at home. I want to see them, you know, graduate college, and get married and maybe have grandkids," he told lawmakers in September 2025 (via CNN). "I want to be there for all that. So I'm going to fight to the last breath on this one." Dane has overcome a lot of adversity and plans to continue until the end. 

In an ideal world, Eric Dane would have faced his health crisis in private with just the support of his loved ones. But, as a public figure, he couldn't afford that luxury. "It wasn't something I ever really wanted to do. It was something I felt like I had to do," he told The Washington Post in an October 2025 article. "It was getting increasingly difficult to hide what was going on." In June 2025, two months after sharing his diagnosis, he revealed he had lost function in his right arm and hand — his dominant side — on "Good Morning America."

Dane's left side still worked then, but probably not for long. "I feel like maybe a few more months and I won't have my left hand either. It's sobering," he told Diane Sawyer. In October, he was seen in a wheelchair at the Toronto airport, looking thinner and more frail than we're used to. To avoid speculative theories regarding these physical changes he knew were coming, he decided to offer the truth.

But what happened next swept him off his feet. "I've never experienced a bigger outpouring of love and support than I have after I announced that," he told The Washington Post. Since then, he has gone all in on his activism, winning the ALS Network's Advocate of the Year Award in September 2025. "Just want to thank @realericdane for not being quiet and private about this disease. We need all hands on deck," one Instagram user wrote. 

In June 2011, Eric Dane, then 38, sought professional help to address an addiction to prescription painkillers. He and his then-wife, Rebecca Gayheart, had recently announced they were expecting their second child when he went into rehab. "[He] voluntarily checked himself into a treatment facility to help him get off of pain medication that he was prescribed for a sports injury that he suffered over the recent hiatus," his rep told E! News in a statement.

Pain medication wasn't the only substance Dane had been struggling with. He had been suffering from alcohol addiction for years, though he had been sober for a few years when he joined "Grey's Anatomy" in 2006. However, he relapsed during the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-08. "If you take the whole eight years I was on 'Grey's Anatomy,' I was f***ed up longer than I was sober," he said on the "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" podcast in 2024. "And that was when things started going sideways for me."

Part of the issue was his inability to handle his overnight fame and the expectations that came with it. "It was overwhelming, and I think I just wanted to pretend that it wasn't and that I was comfortable with it," he said. Dane's addiction was still active when he was fired from the show in 2012, suggesting he relapsed after rehab. "I was struggling. They didn't let me go because of that, although it definitely didn't help," he said. 

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

In 2017, TNT announced "The Last Ship" would take a break from production ahead of the release of its fourth season. The hiatus was a request from Eric Dane, the show's main protagonist. "Eric asked for a break to deal with personal issues," a rep told Variety. "He suffers from depression and has asked for a few weeks of downtime and the producers kindly granted that request. He looks forward to returning."

Three months later, Dane candidly addressed his mental health struggles, opening up an important conversation about how depression works. "[It] was kind of odd to me," he told Today in July 2017. "I felt very conflicted about it, because I didn't feel like I had anything to be depressed about." Even though he struggled to accept it, he also couldn't pretend his symptoms weren't real. "I was seeing these doctors, thinking there was something physically wrong with me because I'd never felt like that," he explained.

Dane realized he had always suffered from depression, but he always managed without intervention. This time, it was different. It started preventing him from continuing his daily life. "That was the scary thing — when you wake up and you're like, 'I don't want to get out of bed," he explained. He realized he couldn't deal with it alone. "This just hit me like a truck," he said. "I had to take some time off. I went away, I took care of it." With the help of an antidepressant, Dane got his depression under control.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Tragedy struck Eric Dane's life at a young age. He was only 7 when his father died by suicide. The traumatic death wreaked havoc on his family, with some family members going into denial mode. "He died of a gunshot wound. My grandmother thinks it was an accident. Everybody's got a different opinion on it," he told the Gulf Times in 2014. The magnitude of his trauma didn't become fully apparent to him until he became a father himself.

"I see how cogent Billie is at the age of four and think, 'My God, this must have been devastating at the age of seven,'" he added. It clearly was. In fact, Dane remembers the day in vivid detail. His mother woke him up at 5 a.m. and, despite crying inconsolably, made him promise he wouldn't. "She tripled down on that," he said on the "Armchair Expert" podcast. He promised he would be strong. "And she said, 'Your father's dead.' It was April 1st, 1980," he recalled.

He remembers carrying that promise as he grieved, a burden that prevented him from expressing his feelings appropriately. "I wanted to explode, but I held it all in," he said. After his ALS diagnosis, Dane relived his childhood trauma at the prospect of leaving his daughters behind. "My father was taken from me when I was young," he said in his "Good Morning America" interview. "And now there's a very good chance I'm going to be taken from my girls while they're very young."

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

When he was at the height of his "Grey's Anatomy" fame, Eric Dane became embroiled in a scandal. In August 2009, a private tape of Dane, his wife Rebecca Gayheart, and former Miss U.S. Teen Kari Ann Peniche hanging out naked was published on Gawker. "This is an unfortunate incident where someone stole some property, personal property, among three very good friends," Peniche's manager told ABC News. "They were very good friends when the tape was filmed a few years ago."

A few years later, Dane showed remorse for the embarrassment it caused Gayheart. "We've all made mistakes. My one regret is that I got the person I love most wrapped up in all that: Rebecca," he told People in 2014. However, time allowed him to see that he didn't make any mistakes, coming to regret his answer way more than his actions. "I often think about that answer I gave. And looking back now, was it a mistake? Absolutely not," he told Glamour in 2019.

He, Gayheart, and Peniche were all adults who had consented to the events unfolding in the video. "We were just three people taking a bath," he said. The three also seemed to be taking drugs, something that he has candidly spoken about. "I didn't regret it. I have no regrets nor do I make any apologies for my life experience. It's my life experience and I am at peace with all of it," he said.