Katey Sagal has reflected on the heartbreaking final hours she shared with John Ritter before his sudden death in 2003 at the age of 54.
The 72-year-old actress opened up during an appearance on the podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, recalling that she was present on September 11, 2003, when Ritter became ill while filming their ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules.
‘I was there, yes,’ Sagal, a Los Angeles native, told podcast host Ted Danson.
‘We were doing press pretty much at four in the afternoon on that day and then by 10 o’clock that night, he left us.’
Ritter collapsed while working on the series and was taken to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California.
Medical staff initially believed he had suffered a heart attack, but his death was later attributed to an aortic dissection.
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Sagal seeking further comment.
Katey Sagal, 72, has spoken about being with John Ritter in the hours before his sudden death in 2003 at age 54
(L-R) Katey Sagal, the late John Ritter, Martin Spanjers, Amy Davidson, Kaley Cuoco and Billy Aaron Brown pictured in a promotional shot for the series 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter
Sagal told Danson that she occasionally feels Ritter’s presence in the years since his passing.
‘It’s interesting – I don’t know what your belief system is, but I feel him around a lot,’ she said. ‘I just feel him around. His energy and his love of laughter and life.’
Sagal added, ‘Even though I think he had his darker side too, he just brought so much light that I just feel him around.’
She recalled about the late Three’s Company star, ‘When I worked with John Ritter, he used to always, he would make such big jokes about face acting.’
Sagal said that Ritter ‘had that rubbery face,’ while Danson remarked he had ‘a sweet soul.’
She previously addressed the sad day Ritter passed away in a 2012 appearance on The Howard Stern Show.
‘We shot a promo and he didn’t feel well, and so at four in the afternoon, he went to his room, after we shot the promo’ she said. ‘And we all went home – we were done for the day.’
She said she was told five hours later that Ritter had been hospitalized as his health was failing.
Ritter and Sagal pictured at The Pantages Theater in Hollywood in March of 2003
Sagal and pictured at an event in August of 2003 at the Family Television Awards
8 Simple Rules first hit the air in September of 2002 and starred Ritter and Sagal as Paul and Cate Hennessy, parents to three children portrayed by Kaley Cuoco, Amy Davidson and Martin Spanjers.
The series took a hiatus following Ritter’s passing and aired a total of three seasons, wrapping up in 2005.
Cuoco last September appeared at a charity event in the actor’s memory, The John Ritter Foundation Evening from the Heart Los Angeles Gala, where she opened up on the impact the late legend left on her career.
‘He changed the course of my life,’ the Big Bang Theory star told People. ‘He was there at the beginning for my career. I spent a year-and-a-half with him, but it changed my life, my entire life.’
She added, ‘I talk about him like it was yesterday, and he affected me as if he’s been here up until this point.
‘He taught me to make people laugh, he told me to not take yourself so seriously, and he taught me to do anything for the joke. He had a heart that was bigger than this planet.’
