Eric Dane Reflects on Split with Rebecca Gayheart in Final Interview

Eric Dane spoke candidly about his wife Rebecca Gayheart in his final interview, which dropped on Friday.

The 53-year-old sat down with Brad Falchuk for Netflix’s “Famous Last Words” posthumous interview series in the months before he died. 

Dane, who battled ALS, took part in the conversation "under an agreement that the episode would only be aired after his death.”

Brad asked about his relationship with Rebecca, whom he married in 2004. The stars split up about eight years ago, but called off their divorce after he was diagnosed. They share daughter Billie, 15, and Georgie, 14.

Eric shared, “We still love each other deeply. I just think we just don’t want to live with each other. But there is a lot of love there. I will have never… by the time anybody sees this, have fallen in love with another woman as deeply as I fell in love with Rebecca. She is the mother of my children.”

Dane confessed that the first time he met Rebecca he told her friend, “I’m gonna to marry that girl.”

Her friend told him, “No way, she’s never breaking up with her fiancé”

Eric dished, “Four years later I married her.”

He explained, “I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, like it was supposed to happen.”

The actor said she knows him better than anyone.

How would Gayheart describe him? 

“She would probably say I was a person who was constantly vulnerable and terrified of being vulnerable. I think she would say that I was funny. I think she would say that I was charming and didn’t know it.”

Brad questioned how he couldn’t know he had that “star charm,” but Eric explained, “I would argue I didn’t have it. I don’ know if you can have it and know that you can have it… it would be unauthentic.”

Why didn’t the marriage work out?

He said, “I think Rebecca was more willing to show up and do her part than I was.”

Brad asked, "How come? How come you weren’t?" 

Eric said, "I don’t have that gene that just makes you want to keep going regardless of what happened. I’m like, if there is a hole in the boat don’t try to patch the hole, scuttle the damn thing and find a new one.”

Later he added, “I’ve always been envious of people who fight and persevere. Rebecca is a fighter and she perseveres."

In November, Rebecca spoke about their complicated relationship on "Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson & Olivia Allen.”

She explained, "I am definitely trying to show [my daughters] that we show up for people no matter what. And he is our family, he is your father. We show up and we try to do it with some dignity and some grace and just get through it, and that we will get through it the best we can.”

She went on, "I mean, it's super complicated for me… We’ve been separated for eight years, right? The kids live with me 100 percent of the time and, you know, there's been lots of just stuff, other stuff… I try to stay optimistic though about it all. I'm trying to learn from it and role model, for them, how to go through something like this, which is really hard.”

Gayheart confessed, "I don't know if I'm doing it well or if I'm… doing it in the wrong way or the right way. I'm just showing up. I'm showing up, and I'm trying to be there for them, and I guess time will tell... They’re good girls who are just going through a lot.”