Dax Shepard may now have a “sweetness” for former Grey’s Anatomy star Eric Dane, but that wasn’t always the case.
In fact, Shepard has revealed that they nearly came to blows at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting.
“Eric Dane, who I now f***ing love, I have such a sweetness for him,” Shepard told guest Brad Pitt on Monday’s episode of his Armchair Expert podcast. “But when we first were around each other, it was not good.”
The Parenthood actor recalled the AA meeting where Dane “threatened a dude.”
“And I said, ‘Let’s go, motherf***ers,’” Shepard, 50, recounted. “In the middle of the meeting, he goes, ‘If you hit that timer again, I’m gonna f***ing throw you in that candle.’ And I go, ‘That’s it, mothef***er. Let’s go. Stand up, let’s go outside.’
“He stands up, we go outside and I’m about to beat the f*** out of him — at an AA meeting, where we’re coming for healing and understanding,” the Punk’d alum added.
“But what’s great is that we’re friends now, and we’ve told that story on the podcast, and it’s quite like a hilarious beginning for us, because now I love him.”
The Grey’s Anatomy actor, who was recently diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), previously appeared on Shepard’s podcast in 2024, where he opened up about his journey toward sobriety.
Dane, 52, starred on the long-running medical drama for six years as Dr. Mark Sloan before his character was tragically killed off in season nine. “I didn’t leave so much as I was let go,” he claimed about his exit.
He explained that, while he had been sober for four years before joining the series in its second season, he was “f***ed up longer than I was sober” during his time as a cast member.
Acknowledging that the producers “didn’t let me go because of that,” he said, “it definitely didn’t help.”
“I was starting to become, as most of these actors who have spent significant time on a show, you start to become very expensive for the network,” he said. “And the network knows that the show is going to do what it’s going to do, irrespective of who they keep on it. As long as they have their Grey [Ellen Pompeo], they’re fine.”
Ahead of leaving Grey’s Anatomy, Dane entered a treatment center after developing an addiction to prescription drugs after a sports injury.
“It wasn’t ceremoniously like, ‘You’re fired,’ it was just like, ‘You’re not coming back,’” the Euphoria actor admitted. “I wasn’t the same guy they had hired. So I had understood when I was let go. And Shonda [Rhimes] was really great. She protected us fiercely. She protected us publicly. She protected us privately.”
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