Ryan Seacrest Shares Devastating News of Father Gary's Passing

Ryan Seacrest shared on-air on Friday, October 31, that his beloved father, Gary, has passed away after battling cancer.

Seacrest previously shared Gary had been privately battling prostate cancer for a while now.

 Seacrest, along with his close-knit family members, helped care for his dad who passed away peacefully at home in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this week.

"It's so vivid in my mind ... but as he said without much strength or energy that he loved us and that he was going to miss us," Seacrest shared on-air on Friday. "He looked over at me -- and the power in the contact -- he said, 'Take care of your mom.' And he said to my sister [Meredith], [and to her husband] Jimmy, 'Take care of Flora my granddaughter.' And then literally a few seconds later he closed his eyes and said, 'I've got to go.' ... He knew. He was at peace."

Seacrest emotionally shared that Gary "left at peace" and that he'll "live in our hearts forever."

"My father Gary Seacrest was an amazing man. He was my best friend. ... He was so proud of his marriage and love of my mom for 56 years."

Gary, who also helped run the Ryan Seacrest Foundation for the past two decades, is survived by his wife Connie, son Ryan, daughter Meredith and granddaughter Flora.

Our hearts and strength are with Ryan and the Seacrest family as they navigate this devastating time and we'll forever keep Gary in our memories.

Listen back to Seacrest recall some of his fondest memories of his beloved father, including how Gary would show up after working late to still catch his football practices.

join us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onairwithryan

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Angelis writing Seacrest, Sisanyania, Everybody is here. It is Halloween.
There's a lot going on, and there's a lot of festivities.
You're on your way into school. Your life is going on.
My heart is pounding because I want to share something.
It's going to be very difficult for me to share
with you, Sisity and Tania at Mark, everybody here as
well as everyone listening. And what I'm about to say

(00:23):
has happened to a lot of you, and you don't
know how to handle it when it happens, and you
don't know what it feels like until it happens to
you and to your family. Earlier this week, I lost
my dad, Garry Seacrest, to cancer. He was in Atlanta,

(00:50):
where we grew up, where my mom and dad lived
for so many years. I was by his bedside over
the last several days. I was by his bedside as
he left us. My mother was by his bedside, my
sister by his bedside. We held his hand, we kissed

(01:16):
his forehead, we watched every last moment with our father,
my mom's husband of fifty six years. It was the
most difficult dichotomy and strange combination of feelings I've ever

(01:36):
felt because of the difficulty and the toughness and seeing
this happen, the helplessness you have.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And losing someone so close.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I've seen loss in my life, but never that of
a parent.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
And when you lose.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Someone that close, you cannot describe what you feel, and
you just don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
What to do.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, I couldn't imagine, and.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
There's nothing to do. I will tell you that.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
As the days were going by, and he had been
sick for a long time and it was getting worse
and worse.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I remember months ago, I rushed back.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
He was in the ICU and a doctor named doctor
Desi in Atlanta. What an angel, What an amazing guy
he is. Doctor Deci saved his life essentially, and he
helped us through this, as they say, end of life stage.
He was with us, He guided us, he counseled us.
He was more than just a doctor. He really became

(02:40):
our leader in terms of how to handle this. I
what to expect because there's so much unknown, I would
be clueless. Yeah, So my father in his last hours,
as we just sat there, he weakly mumbled that he
loved us, and I remember him saying I can see

(03:02):
him laying in the bed. I can see his mouth
slowly moving to the words I love this family.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Oh, it's beautiful family.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
We're close.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
It's only we're so sorry. Thank you, thank you, I
thank you. It's it's just my it's my sister, it's
my mom, it's me. That's that's our original family.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now we've got my brother in law who was also there, Jimmy,
and my adorable niece who.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
How's she doing?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
How's doing? I've thought about her instantly. She's being told
the truth.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Good, simply, just simply, and then of course no further detail,
because I think that's my sister thinks, and we agreed
that is the best way to handle in this moment
for us. But as he said, and I it is
so vivid in my mind, and I'm with my mom
and my sister now where I'm not in your studio.

(04:06):
I've been with them. I've been with them for over
a week. But as he said, without much strength or energy,
that he loved us and that he was going to
miss us.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
He looked over at me, and he.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
The power in the contact of eyes, and his eyes
were barely open, but he looked over at me and
he said, take care of your mom, and.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
He said.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
To my sister, to Jimmy, take care of Flora, my granddaughter.
And then literally a few seconds later, he closed his
eyes and he said, I've got to go. Oh my gosh,
I've got to go. He knew, Yeah, he was at peace.
He said everything he wanted to say to him.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
I gotta say, I'm like that sounds like a peaceful
way for him to say goodbye to you.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Guys like that and go.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
And it's never going to be easy, and no one
will ever be able to say the right things to
you to make you feel better.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
And I.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Want to tell you because this has been on our
minds obviously, is something that we've been handling and trying
to handle life at the same time, which is impossible
to do.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, it's impossible.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
You're dealing with all of this, You're coming to work
every day and putting a brave face.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
But it's what we do. He did leave. He left
at peace. He got the chance to speak with us.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
I asked him, I got to say to him in
the literally some of the last hours, are you in pain?

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Are you in pain?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
And he indicated no, He just sort of no, I
mean just barely shook his head.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, in the family room. That's where he was.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
We put his bed in our family family room in Atlanta. Yeah,
my father, Gary Seacrest, was an amazing man.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
He was my best friend. He was so proud of you, Ryan, Well.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
That when you're for me as a son, all I wanted,
of course, all I want to hear is I'm proud
of you.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
There's so much power in dad saying, and he was,
I'm proud of you.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
He was so proud of his marriage and his love
of my mom of fifty six years. He was proud
of my sister, who was proud of her family. He
was proud of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation. This is something
that we did together and he actually ran it for
so many years, almost two decades. He ran this with
my mom and my sister and now it's got a
lot of people working there at the foundation. She was

(06:45):
so proud of that. He ultimate gentleman. I mean, he
did the things that you hope someone who's with your
daughter in this case, my mom does for your daughter, right,
you know, really respects, communicates, stands on the street side

(07:06):
when she's on the sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
He was a champion of family dinners.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
He always wanted us to have dinner together so we
could talk, and he would show. He would show if
I remember just thinking about this, if you're just joining us,
I was sharing that my we're devastated and heartbroke and
my father passed away this week.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
It's a cancer.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And so those of you who have experienced loss closely,
I know what you feel.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
I know what it feels like.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And watching it through the last second, I know what
that feels like. And certainly those of you who have
fought cancer and battled it into remission, or those of
you who have had cancer take someone's life in your orbit,
it's hard. You know the treatments he would like. The

(08:00):
treatments are for the cancer. That was what was making
him sick. He just didn't have the strength to do
things after the treatments, which was the hard, frustrating part
of this.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
That's very frustrating. But he will live in our hearts forever.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
He had made such an impact on our lives and
the lives of so many people, and he showed up.
I remember when he would not he would come to
the football games when I played football, sure, but he
would come to practices. The guy worked from early in
the morning till late at night, and he would show
up in his suit at five point fifteen. I know
he left work early. He just just to be there.
Didn't have to say anything. He just wanted to want
to say, Hey, I'm here for you, even at practice,

(08:44):
you know.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I think about that.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
If I have kids, I'm going to their practice, you know,
their high school practices. Yeah, even if I'm working a lot.
Although he did say to me a couple of days earlier,
stop working so much, please, that would be one of
my wishes. But Dad, I know you're with us. We
love you, You will be in our hearts, and we

(09:06):
will honor you every day. Yeah, thank you for blessing
us with the traits that we have, the character we have,
the family we have, the values we have. So I'm
sorry to do this on a Friday, in the middle
of your Halloween celebrations, but I just couldn't go I
couldn't pretend, I couldn't go on. I couldn't do this

(09:26):
without telling you. And thank you and Tanya for your
sweet notes last night.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yes, when I told you, We're here for you whatever
you need, and you can still like you said he
loved to have family dinners. You can still do the
family dinners and keep his memory and keep talking about
him and sharing stories, and.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah, we will. I'm learning all of this.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
And the hard part of this is when you you
you try your best to like it, come in here
and do something normal, and you're okay for a minute,
and then you talk about it and you're not okay,
or someone says something to you about.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Him and you're not a or something reminds you.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Last night, last night I was thinking about how what
am I going to say?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
You know, right, grief never it never goes away. It
just changes form.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
So to those of you who have been through this,
I'm with you. I understand it, and I will tell you.
My friends after my close friends who I told ask me,
how are you doing? And I said, everything looks different,
Everything has slowed down. Everything priorities have pivoted instantly. I'd

(10:39):
imagine in a different way of joy when you have kids.
This pivot of priority, right, this shift and everything I
look at is through a different lens instantly.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
And what what broke.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
My heart this morning and thinking about this, I guess
it was a sign that he's here.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
His phone is still there.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
His phone is literally octave and it's right there still.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Thank you very much for listening to this, and I
apologize for the hard news.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Uh now we're here for you. We love you so much. Rhyme,
we love your family so much. Our hearts with everyone.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Thank you, and to my mom, my, sister and Jimmy
and Flora. I love you and we'll we'll get through
it together and frankly we'll be stronger, we'll be closer.
But man, the first time at this is you just
don't know how to handle her. What it's going to be.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Now.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
My father would probably be up there going, okay, you
said it, hurry up, play some music. It's Halloween. Kids
are trigger treating later. I used to take you trick
or treating. I used to go down there. We'd watch
a magician before till the sun would set, and we'd
go trick or treating with a pillow case and you'd
want to have the reeses and they didn't eat candy.
So I got it all. We'll take a break. This

(12:00):
is one of two point seven kiss f