Dax Shepard said he ‘hated’ the late actor Eric Dane when they first met before they later developed a close friendship.
The 51-year-old podcast host even recalled how he almost got into a ‘fist fight’ with the Euphoria actor when they attended the same AA meetings in the past.
Shepard added that they later grew close and he ‘ended up loving him so much’ prior to Dane’s death in February at age 53 after battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
‘Eric Dane, I can now say I met in recovery and we hated each other,’ he recalled in an interview with CNN‘s Anderson Cooper at the New Orleans Book Festival on Thursday, April 2. ‘I hated him!’
Shepard said he ‘thought [Dane] was a bit of a bully’ initially but explained they ended up bonding over not having their respective fathers around in their lives.
About the genesis of his friendship with Dane, he said: ‘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.”
Dax Shepard revealed he initially ‘hated’ Eric Dane when they first met before they later developed an unexpected friendship; pictured in January
Shepard said he ‘ended up loving him so much’ prior to Dane’s death in February at age 53 after battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); pictured in June 2025
‘It was on. And we walked outside to a fist fight in the driveway of an AA meeting,’ he recalled before explaining that other people ended up breaking up the fight.
Over time, Shepard said he started to understand him as he learned more about Dane while sharing stories in AA meetings.
‘God bless both of us. We kept coming back to the same meeting,’ he said. ‘Over the course of the next two years, I found myself starting to kind of relate to him. I heard his story.’
He continued: ‘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.”
‘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 recalled the turning point happened when Dane shared his honest thoughts about him during one particular meeting.
‘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.”
In a recent interview, he recalled meeting Dane in the same AA meeting and admitted he ‘thought he was a bit of a bully’ at first
He recalled how they almost got into a ‘fist fight’ before other people broke them up. Over time, he said he ‘came to fall in love’ with Dane as he gushed about his late friend
Shepard shared his admiration for his late friend and opened up about watching Dane battle ALS, calling it the ‘bravest thing he’d done’; pictured in Brilliant Minds still
Dane previously revealed that he experienced symptoms of ALS about a year and a half before receiving his diagnosis in April 2025. He died at age 53 in February; pictured in September 2025
‘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.
‘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.’
During the interview, Shepard also opened up about dealing with the loss of his friend and gushed about the Grey’s Anatomy star.
In April 2025, Dane was diagnosed with ALS – ‘a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,’ according to the Mayo Clinic.
Dane previously revealed that he experienced symptoms of ALS about a year and a half before receiving his diagnosis. He died at age 53 nearly two months ago.
‘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.’
