Kaley Cuoco Remembers TV Dad John Ritter on Anniversary of His Death

John Ritter passed away on Sept. 11, 2003 from heart complications, with Tuesday marking the fifteenth anniversary of the actor’s death.

To honor Ritter, Kaley Cuoco used Instagram on Tuesday to share a shot of herself kneeling next to the actor’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as she prepared to blow a kiss.

“15 years .. love you forever, John!” she wrote. “#johnritter you still make me laugh every single day.”

Cuoco’s pixie haircut, pink lace dress and nude patent heels indicate that the snap was taken on the day of her own Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceremony in 2014.

Ritter and Cuoco starred together on the sitcom 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter, which premiered in 2002. Ritter played Hennessey family patriarch Paul, while Cuoco starred as daughter Bridget. Katey Sagal, Amy Davidson and Martin Spanjers also starred on the show as the other members of the family.

Ritter’s death was addressed on the show, with the series writing that Paul had collapsed in a grocery store and passed away. The show continued until 2005 and shortened its name to 8 Simple Rules.

Speaking in the upcoming Reelz documentary John Ritter: Behind Closed Doors, Cuoco recalled her last moment with Ritter.

“To this day, if anyone asks me, ‘John Ritter,’ I get this chill,” Cuoco said, via Entertainment Tonight. “Because I love him so much.”

On the day of his death, Ritter felt ill on set of 8 Simple Rules, telling the cast and crew he needed rest. Before leaving, he stopped by Cuoco’s dressing room for what would be his final chat with his on-screen daughter.

“I go ‘Hi!’ I go ‘Are you okay? I heard you’re sick!’ He goes ‘I’m okay, I just want to talk to you for a second,’” Cuoco recalled. “He sat down on the couch and he goes, ‘I love you.’ And I was like, ‘I love you too, silly man!’ He goes, ‘No, I want you to know I love you.’”

“And I said, ‘I love you too.’ He goes ‘That’s it’ and he gave me a hug. And that was the last I saw of him.”

The documentary also sees Cuoco recalling the first day she met Ritter when she was 16 years old.

“We had a table read. I had just turned 16 and I wanted to look the part — I played kind of this sexy 16-year-old. So, I wore this, like, spaghetti-strap shirt with, like, a bra strap showing,” Cuoco shared, via Today.

“I’m sitting at the table read and John walks in, he looks at me and he’s like (sternly), ‘You’re playing my daughter. Put a sweater on,’” she recalled. “Then he barrels over in this laughter.”

“He took a sweater off a random person in the room — this whole physical act he did — he pulls it off and puts it on me. And he goes, ‘Dress like that from now on,’” Cuoco added.

“That was it,” she said. “It was amazing. That was my introduction to him. I was in love from that moment on.”

Photo Credit: ABC