Eric Dane’s shattered girlfriend Janell Shirtcliff shared her memories of him Saturday, two days after his death at 53 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Dane, 53, who shot to fame on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Mark Sloan aka ‘McSteamy,’ announced less than a year ago that he had been diagnosed with the illness, which is known colloquially in America as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The rare, incurable degenerative condition impairs the nervous system over time and causes the muscles to increasingly suffer from paralysis.
Although Dane split from his wife Rebecca Gayheart in 2017, they remained friendly co-parents to their daughters Billie, 15, and Georgia, 13, and never finalized the divorce, which they called off altogether just before he revealed he had ALS.
Gayheart remained a stalwart source of support for him amid his final decline but they continued to date other people, with Dane involved with model Shirtcliff.
Now Shirtcliff, 42, has shared a heartbreaking string of photos and videos memorializing the time she shared with Dane in the last year of his life.
Eric Dane’s shattered girlfriend Janell Shirtcliff shared her memories of him Saturday, two days after his death at 53 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); pictured last June
Shirtcliff shared a string of snaps on her Instagram, including this tender moment with her late boyfriend
She included pictures of him breaking out his unmistakable charming smile, including while having a tattoo applied and sharing a laugh with her.
Shirtcliff also shared a video of her driving him through what appeared to be a desert as they sang the classic Dire Straits song Money for Nothing together.
Dane could be seen holding his last girlfriend close and planting an affectionate kiss on one of her temples as they posed together at a set of steps.
In a heartwarming video that closed out Shirtcliff’s tribute, Dane’s youngest daughter Georgia was seen setting up his pose for a photo that she would snap of him.
Shirtcliff was at Dane’s side when he walked what turned out to be his final red carpet last June 18 in Los Angeles, eight months before his death.
A source then said their joint appearance ‘blindsided’ his previous girlfriend Priya Jain, inasmuch as Dane had ‘never broken up’ with her, via Page Six.
However an insider has now shared that during ‘the months leading up to Eric’s passing Priya and Eric reconnected their relationship as friends.’
Jain was supposedly astonished at how fast Dane’s condition had deteriorated as she ‘didn’t think it would happen this quickly,’ the source told Us Weekly.
Now Shirtcliff, 42, has shared a heartbreaking string of photos and videos memorializing the time she shared with Dane in the last year of his life
Dane could be seen holding his last girlfriend close and planting an affectionate kiss on one of her temples as they posed together at a set of steps
She included pictures of him breaking out his unmistakable charming smile, including while having a tattoo applied
He was also pictured sharing a laugh with her
In a heartwarming video that closed out Shirtcliff’s tribute, Dane’s youngest daughter Georgia was seen setting up his pose for a photo that she would snap of him
Dane, 53, who shot to fame on Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Mark Sloan aka ‘McSteamy,’ announced less than a year ago that he had been diagnosed with ALS
She was ‘so sad and devastated,’ according to the insider, who added that Jain was ‘grateful’ that his daughters ‘exist to keep his memory alive.’
Dane’s friends set up a GoFundMe to help provide for his children in the wake of his death, and by Saturday morning over $183,000 of the $250,000 goal had been raised.
A source has revealed Johnny Depp had attempted to ‘ease the financial burden’ by allowing Dane to stay at one of his homes during his ALS battle.
‘He was living basically rent-free in one of the homes Johnny owns above the Sunset Strip. He told Eric to pay whatever he could or — couldn’t for rent,’ the source told Page Six, adding that Dane as a result had ‘one less thing to worry about.’
He had sharply declined after his diagnosis, using a wheelchair, losing the use of his right arm and pulling out of a public appearance last month citing the ‘physical realities’ his illness had forced him to face.
Nevertheless Dane, whose recent work includes playing the father of Jacob Elordi’s character on Euphoria, insisted as recently as December that he would keep acting.
‘I still have my brain and I still have my speech,’ he said on a virtual panel for IAMALS.org. ‘I’m not about to concede my purpose for some disease.’
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