“I ended up loving him so much,” Shepard said of the late actor, who died at 53 in February following a battle with ALS.

Dax Shepard reflects on befriending Eric Dane after almost fighting each other at an AA meeting: ‘I hated him’

"I ended up loving him so much," Shepard said of the late actor, who died at 53 in February following a battle with ALS.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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April 10, 2026 11:47 a.m. ET

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Dax Shepard; Eric Dane. Credit:

Dax Shepard is looking back at how he came to befriend late *Grey’s Anatomy *star Eric Dane after almost duking it out in the driveway of an AA meeting once.

The *Armchair Expert* podcaster explained in a recent conversation with CNN’s Anderson Cooper at the New Orleans Book Festival that he came to love Dane after taking the time to understand how his backstory shaped his worldview.

“Eric Dane, I can now say I met in recovery and we hated each other. I hated him!” Shepard emphasized. “I thought he was a bit of a bully. And we were in a meeting [and] he threatened a younger member of the group, and this had been simmering for a long time, and I said, ‘Let’s go. Outside. Right now.’ It was on.”

Dax Shepard in 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

The *Idiocracy* star revealed that he and Dane got as far as stepping outside of the building before “people intervened” and broke up their fight. And yet, despite their chilly relations, Shepard said that he and Dane both kept attending the same meetings and, in doing so, learned a bit about what shaped their perspectives.

“Over the course of the next two years, I found myself starting to kind of relate to him,” he said. “I heard his story. His father shot himself in his house when he was a little boy. And his mom came upstairs and said, ‘I’ll tell you what happened if you promise that you won’t cry.’”

Shepard continued, “And so that little boy held onto that. And then that little boy grew up without a dad like I grew up without a dad, and he was so in search of masculine validation, and it took all these shapes that I hated. That I’m sure he hated in me.”

Eric Dane in 2025.

Marvin Joseph/Getty

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He went on to detail the moment that they officially became friends.

“I remember he had his share one time and I said, ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but that’s one of my favorite shares I’ve ever heard,’” Shepard recalled. “Maybe a week or two later, one of his shares, he said, ‘I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but I think I’ve come to fall in love with Dax.’ And then we became friends.”

After that, Shepard said that he would often visit Dane’s house and they would bond over “the vacuum left when you don’t have a dad around” and what it meant to be a man.

“I came to fall in love with a very scared man trying and hoping he had become a man, and I related, and I ended up loving him so much,” he added.

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He also remembered learning about Dane’s ALS diagnosis and praised the way the fellow actor carried himself throughout his health battle.

“For a person who was so hellbent on being hyper-masculine and incredibly fit, to have agreed to become the face of this disease, completely diminished, I found to be the bravest thing he’d done in all these pursuits of manliness,” he said.

Dane, best known for playing Dr. Mark “McSteamy” Sloan, died Feb. 19 following a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 53.

"With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS,” his family said in a statement. “He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world.”

It continued in part, “Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always.”

Watch Shepard discuss his friendship with Dane in the clip above.

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