Eric Dane, who played Dr. Mark Sloan on the long-running ABC drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” has passed away. He was photographed wearing a black long-sleeve shirt and posing against a dark wood paneling.

Eric Dane, best known for charming “Grey’s Anatomy” audiences as plastic surgeon Dr. Mark “McSteamy” Sloan, died after a public battle with ALS.

Dane, a TV icon whose career extended from “Saved by the Bell” to “Euphoria” and beyond, died on Thursday, his publicist said. He was 53.

“With heavy hearts, we announce that Eric Dane died on Thursday afternoon after a heroic battle with ALS. “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,” the statement said. “Throughout his battle with ALS, Eric became a devoted champion for awareness and research, wanting to make a difference for those experiencing similar challenges. He will be profoundly missed and fondly remembered forever. Eric cherished his followers and is eternally grateful for the love and support he has received. “The family has requested privacy as they navigate this impossible time.”

Dane announced his ALS diagnosis in April 2025. He, a former professional swimmer and water polo player, claims that ALS, commonly known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease, caused the right side of his body to stop working. Prior to his death, the actor used his personal experiences with the condition to play a firefighter with ALS on television and lobbied for legislation addressing the ailment.

In Shonda Rhimes’ “Grey’s Anatomy,” Dane’s Sloan was a welcome addition to Seattle Grace Hospital’s staff of heartthrobs who couldn’t seem to keep their gloved hands off each other amid shifts of crazy and dramatic patients. He made his first appearance in Season 2 of “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2006. Within minutes of his arrival, Sloan is punched in the face by Patrick Dempsey’s Dr. Derek Shepherd and presents himself to Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey as one of the fellow “dirty mistresses” that ended Shepherd’s marriage to ex-wife Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh).

Dane had promised to appear in only one episode of the long-running ABC drama, but he remained a staple — and eye candy for fans — for more than 130 episodes before 2012. Sloan, nicknamed “McSteamy” due to his appearance, pursued romances with Drs. Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), and Teddy Altman (Kim Raver) throughout Dane’s stay. His character died early in Season 9, following a tragic Season 8 plane crash that also killed Leigh’s Lexie.

Prior to “Grey’s,” Dane appeared in minor roles on shows such as “Saved by the Bell,” “Roseanne,” “Gideon’s Crossing,” and “Charmed.” Dane followed his “Grey’s Anatomy” run with appearances on the ABC spinoff “Private Practice,” a prominent part in TNT’s “The Last Ship,” and a spell as a clandestine real estate magnate and father in HBO’s teen thriller “Euphoria.”

Following “Grey’s Anatomy,” he acted in a number of films, including “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Marley & Me,” “Burlesque,” and Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day,” which reunited him with co-star Patrick Dempsey.

Dane did not want to become an actor until he was suddenly cast in his high school’s performance of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” but he “fell in love with it,” he told the Gulf Times in 2014.

“I was like this is the greatest feeling ever,” he joked.

Eric William Dane was born on November 9, 1972, in San Francisco. His father, a Navy man-turned-architect, died of a gunshot wound when the actor was seven, leaving his mother to raise her two children with the help of her parents.

Dane attended Sequoia and San Mateo High Schools but dropped out before graduating to pursue acting in Los Angeles.

He partied frequently in his twenties and first went to rehab at the age of 26. Despite his “Grey’s Anatomy” success, Dane struggled with addiction to opiates and prescription medications. He relapsed in 2007 during the Writers Guild of America strike, as he admitted in 2024.

“If you take the whole eight years I was on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ I was f— up longer than I was sober and that was when things started going sideways for me,” he recounted at the time. Notably, he returned to rehab in 2011 to deal with prescription drug concerns related to a sporting injury.

Dane also talked candidly about his depression, which flared up in 2017 while filming his show “The Last Ship.” During a 2017 “Today” interview, Dane revealed that he was on medicine to treat the disorder, which he described as hitting him “like a truck.”

“I had to take some time off,” he explained at the time. “I went away, I took care of it, and I’m feeling great.”

Dane married “Loving” actress and model Rebecca Gayheart in Las Vegas in 2004, on the same day he proposed to her. Infamously, their relationship was called into question when a leaked film from 2009 showed the couple naked and intoxicated sitting in a bathtub with actor Kari Ann Peniche. Marty Singer, the spouses’ attorney at the time, downplayed the controversy.

However, the couple separated in 2017, and Gayheart filed for divorce from Dane in 2018, but the divorce was never finalized. Then, in March 2025, just before he revealed his ALS, she filed a request to dismiss the initial petition.

After revealing his illness, Dane participated in an episode of the NBC medical drama “Brilliant Minds” as a courageous firefighter trying to tell his family he had ALS. The episode aired in late November, and Gayheart disclosed in a late December New York magazine column that the actor was receiving 24-hour nursing care, with her filling the majority of the caretakers’ missed shifts.

“We haven’t lived in the same house for eight years; he’s dated other people, and I’ve dated someone,” Gayheart wrote in the article, which detailed Dane’s diagnosis and its impact on the family. “It’s a complicated relationship that people struggle to understand. Our love may not be romantic, but it is a family love. Eric understands I will always want the best for him. That I will do my best to look after him. I know he’d do the same for me.

“So whatever I can do or however I can show up to make this journey better for him or easier for him, I want to do that,” she told me. “And I want to set an example for my daughters: that is what you do. That’s the correct thing to do.”

Dane is survived by his children, Billie (15) and Georgia (14), whom he shares with Gayheart.