Amy Yasbeck on the Sweet Way Her Family Honors John Ritter in Their Group Text: He 'Would've Loved This' (Exclusive)

John Ritter’s widow, Amy Yasbeck, reveals the unique way her family is honoring the late comedian.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health on Thursday, May 9, Yasbeck, 61, describes the content the family shares in a group thread when they want to honor the man they loved.

“All we do is send each other videos of physical comedy or people falling, or a bird pooping on them or something. We say ‘John would’ or ‘Dad would love this,'” she says, referring to John’s four children. .

“And you don’t even have to say it, because we all share his appreciation for physical comedy,” she adds.

Amy Yasbeck at the annual An Evening from the Heart Gala benefiting the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health held at the Sunset Room on May 9, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

Mike Tran/Variety via Getty

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Amy’s comments come more than two decades after the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor died suddenly on September 11, 2003, aged 54, after suffering an aortic dissection.

Yasbeck founded her organization the same year her husband died suddenly, to raise awareness of the condition in a way people could understand.

“Science can be very dense sometimes. But to be able to tell it as a story, that’s what actors do, they tell stories. Be able to tell everyone’s story, people understand it better than sitting in a classroom,” she says of it. how events like the gala make a difference.

Speaking to PEOPLE at last year’s gala for a foundation created in her late husband’s honor, Yasbeck, when asked about the joy she feels in keeping Ritter’s legacy alive, said, “It’s a compromise. Because the legacy is keeping his family alive.”

“And he thought everyone was connected and everyone was family, which I believe, but he believed that very deeply,” the actress added in part. “So in my sincere effort to understand what aortic dissection is, I understand the genetic component, which is extremely high, and I’m trying to protect John’s children and his brother.”

From left: Amy Yasbeck, John Ritter, Jason Ritter and Carly Ritter. Barry King/WireImage John Ritter’s ‘Three’s Company’ costar Priscilla Barnes fondly remembers his ‘goofball’ energy (Exclusive)

Ritter and Yasbeck met in 1990 during a table reading Problem child at the house of director Dennis Dugan. They quickly bonded over their love of art and married nine years later in September 1999.

“John and I bonded over comedy, where we’d watch old comedies,” he told PEOPLE in October 2022. “He would do moves and teach me how to trip or take a fake punch or spit. I was learning that kind of thing, physical comedy from the masters, which John was.”

And although Yasbeck did her best to keep the memory of her late husband alive and move forward, the thought of opening her heart to someone new seemed terrifying.

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“I’m not dating,” she said then. “I mean, it could happen. I’m not in the mood. I think I’d miss John more if I were dating, as weird as that sounds.”

“But because I always feel like he’s with me, and that would be weird because in that case three is not company,” she added.

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Source: HIS Education