{"id":31500,"date":"2026-08-07T21:23:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31500"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:23:42","slug":"katey-sagal-details-final-moments-with-john-ritter-before-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31500","title":{"rendered":"Katey Sagal Details Final Moments With John Ritter Before His Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"segment-text-only\">\n<p>Over two decades after <strong>John Ritter<\/strong>&#8216;s death,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/katey_sagal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Katey Sagal<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0knows there are no rules when it comes to navigating grief.<\/p>\n<p>The actress, who portrayed Ritter&#8217;s onscreen wife Cate Hennessy\u00a0in <em>8 Simples Rules<\/em>, reflected on that September 2003 day when he suddenly got sick during production of the show&#8217;s second season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was there, yes,&#8221; Sagal told <strong>Ted Danson<\/strong> on the Aug. 5 episode of his <a href=\"https:\/\/teamcoco.com\/podcasts\/where-everybody-knows-your-name\/episodes\/katey-sagal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer\"><em>Where Everybody Knows Your Name<\/em><\/a> podcast. &#8220;We were doing press pretty much at 4 in the afternoon on that day and then by 10 o&#8217;clock that night, he left us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She added, &#8220;It was mind-blowing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 72-year-old went on to share that she still feels Ritter&#8217;s presence in her life over two decades after he died from an aortic dissection at age 54.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s interesting,&#8221; she explained. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what your belief system is, but I feel him around a lot. I just feel him around. His energy and his love of laughter and life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even though I think he had his darker side too,&#8221; Sagal continued, &#8220;he just brought so much light that I just feel him around.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over two decades after John Ritter&#8216;s death,\u00a0Katey Sagal\u00a0knows there are no rules when it comes to navigating grief. The actress, who portrayed Ritter&#8217;s onscreen wife Cate Hennessy\u00a0in 8 Simples Rules, reflected on that September 2003 day when he suddenly got sick during production of the show&#8217;s second season. &#8220;I was there, yes,&#8221; Sagal told Ted&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/akns-images.eonline.com\/eol_images\/Entire_Site\/20260807\/214d0cdf-82ee-4aef-85c8-89cddb89c8ee_1786116337.jpg?fit=around%7C1200:1200&output-quality=90&crop=1200:1200;center,top","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}