Dax Shepard 'Hated' Eric Dane When They Met in AA, but Later 'Came to Fall in Love' with the Actor When He 'Heard His Story'

"I found myself starting to kind of relate to him. I heard his story," Shepard said

NEED TO KNOW

• Dax Shepard admitted he initially “hated” Eric Dane but was eventually able to “relate” to the late Euphoria star once they got to know each other
• The actor said the pair bonded over their addiction issues and shared trauma from not having father figures in their lives
• “I found myself starting to kind of relate to him. I heard his story,” Shepard said of Dane, who died at age 53 in February following his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Dax Shepard initially "hated" Eric Dane, but once they got to know each other better, he said he was able to "relate" to the actor.

Speaking with Anderson Cooper at the New Orleans Book Festival last month, Shepard, 51, opened up about his relationship with the late Euphoria star, who died at age 53 in February following his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“Eric Dane, I can now say I met in recovery, and we hated each other. I hated him," Shepard said. “I thought he was a bit of a bully."

Recalling a time when the pair were in a meeting together, Shepard said Dane "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. And we walked outside to a fist fight in the driveway of an AA meeting.”

However, other meeting attendees intervened and broke up the fight between Shepard and Dane.

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Despite the heated altercation, Shepard said he and Dane "kept coming back to the same meeting."

"Over the course of the next two years, I found myself starting to kind of relate to him. I heard his story," the Armchair Expert podcast host said of Dane.

According to Shepard, Dane was open with him about his life growing up. "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 recalled to Cooper, 58.

"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," Shepard continued.

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Shepard also recalled how he and Dane eventually came to support each other specifically at their Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

“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,’ " the father of two said.

“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,' " Shepard continued.

He added: "And then we became friends.”

Both Shepard and Dane have been open about their struggles with addiction. Dane even spoke about his own when he appeared on Shepard's podcast in 2024.

At the time, the actor recalled that he was “let go” from Grey’s Anatomy because he “wasn’t the same guy" due to his struggles.

During his New Orleans Book Festival appearance, Shepard said he would often visit Dane’s home and they would bond over their shared trauma from not having father figures in their lives.

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

Highlighting Dane's ALS diagnosis, Shepard added, “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.”

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