Growing Pains' Tracey Gold: I Felt a Premonition 'Rush over Me' the Day Alan Thicke Died
Five months after Alan Thicke‘s death, his Growing Pains costars are paying a special tribute to the beloved actor.
On Thursday’s Dr. Oz Show, Tracey Gold, Joanna Kerns and Jeremy Miller reunite to open up about Thicke, who passed away unexpectedly on Dec. 13 at 69 years old after suffering a heart attack while playing hockey with his youngest son, Carter.
In a sneak peek at the episode, Gold, 48, reveals a startling experience she went through on the day of Thicke’s death.
“I had a really weird moment,” she says. “I found out [that he died] in the evening, so I assumed the whole episode of what had happened to him happened in the evening, but I started to read and I realized it all happened around noon.”
According to Gold, at around noon that day she was walking to meet her husband Bobby at work when she suddenly began to feel ill.
“I started to feel this rush over me,” she explains. “I felt dizzy and that never happens to me. I never get sick — knock on wood — but I’m like, ‘Bobby, I need to sit down … I don’t feel well.’ “
“I didn’t even think I could get behind the wheel and drive,” she continues. “I sat for a few minutes and it sort of passed, but it was a very surreal experience and it was so weird. It was too obvious to ignore it. You know, when I thought back on it that was the [same] exact time [that he died].”
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Meanwhile, Miller, 40, shares a touching story about his final day with Thicke doing an autograph signing in Chicago.
“Tracey and I got to spend a wonderful day with him,” he says. “We got to sit there and just talk and tell stories and mess around all day. It was really special because I’m working on a new project, and I got to show him and Tracey the one sheet that we had just put together that we were using for our pitch package. And, you know, even with everything going on, Alan being Alan, on the phone, doing autographs, selling his book, doing this, working, taking meetings, he still took me aside, talked to me about the show, gave me a little advice — that’s just who he was. He was so generous with his time, with his energy.”
Kerns, 64, who played Maggie Seaver, the loving wife to Thicke’s Jason Seaver on the beloved ABC sitcom, admits that the star’s passing still feels “very surreal.”
“We loved him,” she says. “We were a family. We spent, you know, 10, 12 hours together a day sometimes! Sometimes we were with Alan and each other more than we were with our regular family. But, we miss him. We miss him.”
The Dr. Oz Show airs weekdays (check local listings).
