Rebecca Gayheart says navigating her teenage daughters’ social media presence has been challenging after estranged husband Eric Dane’s ALS diagnosis.
“Adults are reaching out,” Gayheart, 54, said during a Monday, November 17, appearance on the “Broad Ideas” podcast. “Sending them messages or trying to follow them because they have private accounts. I don’t know how nefarious it is, but I just stop it.”
Gayheart shares daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13, with Dane, whom she’s been married to since 2004. The actors experienced a series of ups and downs in their marriage. Gayheart filed for divorce in February 2018. However, she filed to dismiss the divorce petition, which was never finalized, earlier this year.
“Adults should never reach out to children. That’s all I know, period,” Gayheart continued. “But it’ll be disguised as, you know, ‘Oh I’m just checking in because I love your dad and I just want to make sure.’ I’m like, ‘That’s an adult? Stop.’ It’s a stranger, it’s an adult, you don’t need to speak to them.”
Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart have been candid about their relationship ups and downs over the years. The pair tied the knot in Las Vegas in 2004 and welcomed their first child, daughter Billie, in March 2010. Billie became a big sister the following year when the pair’s second daughter, Georgia, was born. The twosome […]
Dane, meanwhile, was diagnosed with ALS this past April. “I am grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter,” he shared in a statement at the time.
Aside from navigating Dane’s health challenges and how that is impacting their daughters, Gayheart admitted it’s been “extremely tricky” to navigate their online presence as well.
“I think, for them, trying to figure out what they’re feeling. They’re having such complex feelings about it all, and because it’s public, it confuses them,” she explained. “Especially when certain things don’t align. What they’re seeing, but what’s actually happening, It’s very complicated.”
Gayheart has made it her mission to show support for Dane and their girls no matter what.
“He is our family. He is your father,” Gayheart said she tells Billie and Georgia. “We show up, and we try to do it with some dignity and some grace and just get through it.”
The actress discussed her and Dane’s situation, specifically, as well.
“We’ve been separated for eight years. The kids live with me 100 percent of the time. There’s been lots of just stuff, other stuff,” she shared. “I try to stay optimistic, though, about it all. I’m trying to learn from it and [be a] role model for them [for] how to go through something like this, which is really hard.”
Gayheart concluded, “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. I guess time will tell.”
She referred to her daughters as “good girls” who are “going through a lot” at the moment.
“I think one piece of this that I hope I’m passing to my kids is the idea that you can show up for someone and be there for them, but you also have to show up for yourself,” Gayheart said. “This is life. Life, sadly, is just moments good and bad, strung together.”
