Eric Dane was compelled to overlook an look on the ALS Community’s Champions for Cures and Care Gala on Saturday, January 24, as a consequence of ongoing challenges associated to his ALS prognosis.
“The ALS Community has been knowledgeable that Eric Dane had hoped to hitch us this night to just accept his Advocate of the 12 months Award, however as a result of bodily realities of ALS, he isn’t nicely sufficient to attend,” a spokesperson for the ALS Community advised The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday.
The group’s assertion continued, “We stay deeply grateful for his braveness, advocacy, and continued dedication to the ALS neighborhood, and we honor him absolutely this night with our profound respect and help. Aaron Lazar, Broadway star and Grammy Award nominee, will settle for the award on his behalf.”
The charitable group introduced in September 2025 that Dane, 53, would obtain the Advocate of the 12 months Award at its annual Pasadena, California, ceremony. The ALS Community credited Dane with bringing “worldwide consideration to ALS” by way of his “management and compassion” ever since he was identified with the neurodegenerative illness.
“This award is greater than an honor,” Dane mentioned on the time. “[The award is] a mirrored image of the unimaginable energy and braveness I see within the ALS neighborhood daily.”
Dane went public along with his ALS prognosis in April 2025. (ALS — additionally generally generally known as Lou Gehrig’s illness or motor neuron illness — is a “nervous system illness that impacts nerve cells within the mind and spinal wire” and causes lack of muscle management over time, based on the Mayo Clinic.)
“I’ve been identified with ALS,” he advised Folks on the time. “I’m grateful to have my loving household by my aspect as we navigate this subsequent chapter.”
He continued, “I really feel lucky that I’m able to proceed working and am trying ahead to returning to [the] set of Euphoria subsequent week. I kindly ask that you just give my household and I privateness throughout this time.”
Eric Dane in June 2019. CHRIS DELMAS/AFP through Getty Photographs
Along with capturing Euphoria season 3, Dane visitor starred on Good Minds in November 2025 to play a firefighter and 9/11 hero struggling to share his ALS prognosis along with his household. He promoted the TV position by opening up on a Giving Tuesday panel with I AM ALS concerning the influence of his prognosis on his working life.
“I’m not about to concede my objective to some illness. I simply am not able to doing that,” he defined, earlier than later including: “I’ve no motive to be in an excellent spirit at any time, on any given day. I don’t suppose anyone would blame me if I went upstairs in my bed room, crawled below the sheets, and spent the subsequent two weeks crying. And I used to be somewhat bit pleasantly shocked after I realized that I wasn’t constructed like that, as a result of I believed for certain that was gonna be me.”
He added, “I believe it’s crucial that I share my journey with as many individuals as I can as a result of I don’t really feel like my life is about me anymore.”
Throughout that very same panel, Dane pressured that his household’s help had been essential as he grappled with uncertainties in his future.
“Clearly, I’ve a household at dwelling and so they’re the primary precedence, however that is such a giant deal to me to make it possible for persons are conscious of what ALS is and what it’s about and, extra importantly, what we are able to do to fight it and enhance the panorama,” he mentioned.
Eric Dane’s spouse, Rebecca Gayheart, says the couple’s two daughters are “taking it daily” amid his ALS battle. “We have now some skilled therapists who’re serving to us, and we’re simply attempting to have some hope and do it with dignity, grace and love,” Gayheart, 54, advised Folks in an interview revealed on Saturday, […]
Dane and his estranged spouse, Rebecca Gayheart, share two daughters: Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13. (Gayheart filed for divorce from Dane in February 2018 however withdrew the authorized petition in March 2025. Dane made his purple carpet debut with girlfriend Janell Shirtcliff on the Los Angeles premiere of his present Countdown in June, whereas Gayheart has been linked to billionaire Peter Morton.)
Dane has been candid concerning the development of ALS. He confirmed on Good Morning America in June 2025 that he solely had “one functioning arm” as a result of his left aspect “fully stopped working” and was later photographed utilizing a wheelchair that October.
