Eric Dane Reveals How He Really Feels About That Leaked Naked Tape

Television By TooFab Staff |
Stars Who Have Sex Tapes View Photos
Getty

"Looking back now, was it a mistake? Absolutely not," he says now.

Eric Dane, who currently stars on the sex tape and nude photo-filled "Euphoria" on HBO, is reflecting on his own experience with private material being leaked for the world to see.

In 2009, a video showing him, then-wife Rebecca Gayheart and former Miss U.S. Teen Kari Ann Peniche nude and in a bathtub together leaked online. The footage did not show the trio having sex, and was referred to as a "naked tape" at the time.

Speaking with Glamour, the actor was asked if he thought the tape was a "mistake," after he previously told PEOPLE, "We've all made mistakes. My one regret is that I got the person I love most wrapped up in all that: Rebecca."

"I often think about that answer I gave. And looking back now, was it a mistake? Absolutely not," he said in the new interview. "Three consenting adults, one of them being my wife? I wasn't doing anything wrong."

Reassessing his earlier statement, he explained, "I was most likely referring to the drug use that was alluded to in the video, and was that a mistake? Again, I don't necessarily think I was breaking any laws and corrupting anybody. We were just three people taking a bath."

Dane has been open about his addictions to painkillers, for which he went to rehab in 2011, and struggling with depression.

"I didn't regret it," his response to Glamour continued. "I have no regrets nor do I make any apologies for my life experience. It's my life experience and I am at peace with all of it."

Dane also told the publication that his life experiences also helped him connect to his character on "Euphoria," where he plays a married man who uses hookup apps for sex (or, in Jules' case, commit statutory rape).

"I understand what it's like to lead a double life. To have secrets and to have to live keeping those secrets from people," he explained. "I've certainly had my struggles with alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health, and I know what it's like to have to put up a facade and have an external experience not match the internal experience. I felt like that was my strongest asset in trying to articulate what the guy's going through."

Of his full frontal scene in the HBO show's first episode -- in which he wore a prosthetic -- he also added, "Obviously, I'm going to wear a prosthetic if I'm working with another actor, but there was an isolated shot where I [was alone] so I didn't have to [wear a prosthetic]. I simply said, 'If it's going to be better if I'm not in the prosthetic—if it's going to be more organic, sincere, or truthful—then I'm willing to do that.'"

"Euphoria" airs Sundays on HBO.