Katey Sagal has recounted the final moments she spent with her "8 Simple Rules" co-star John Ritter before his unexpected death in 2003. Sagal, 72, shared her memories during an appearance on the podcast "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" with 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," Sagal said of Ritter, who was 54 at the time of his death. She described the event as "mind-blowing."
Ritter collapsed on the set of "8 Simple Rules" on September 11, 2003, during production on the sitcom's second season. He was taken to the hospital, where he died later that evening. His cause of death was determined to be thoracic aortic dissection, a condition involving a tear in the inner layer of the aorta.
Sagal, who played Ritter's on-screen wife, Cate Hennessy, stated that she still feels her late co-star's presence more than two decades later. "It’s interesting, I don’t know what your belief system is, but I feel him around a lot," she shared. "His energy and his love of laughter and life."
She also recalled Ritter's penchant for making jokes about "face acting" due to his expressive features. Danson described Ritter as a "sweet soul," which Sagal affirmed was accurate.
At the time of his death, Ritter was married to Amy Yasbeck, with whom he had a son, Noah Lee. Ritter also had three other children from his first marriage to Nancy Morgan: actors Jason Ritter and Tyler Ritter, and singer Carly Ritter. In 2023, Yasbeck mentioned that Ritter's children help keep his memory alive, noting their individual humor and personalities. "If you get all four kids together, you can kind of re-create John, so that’s always good," she told Fox News Digital.
