Jason Ritter reveals how John Ritter still gives him advice 13 years after his death

Jason Ritter still turns to his father John Ritter for advice 13 years of his death.

The late actor died hours after suffering an aortic dissection on the set of 8 Simple Rules, one week before his 55th birthday on September 11, 2013, and now his son Jason has revealed how he still keeps a connection to his dad.

He told the Joy 101 podcast: "I go, 'I need you in this corner right here, dad,' and I just sort of sit him down and talk to him.

“There’s so much about this world that’s such a mystery, and whether he’s out there somewhere, or I know him so well that he’s within me somewhere, it doesn’t matter. I know him.

"There are times where I can ask him a question that I don’t necessarily know the answer to, and I filter it through what I knew about him as a father and as a person, and I can kind of guess what he would say.”

The I Love Boosters star, who has a seven-year-old daughter with wife Melanie Lynskey, revealed how he also stayed close to John through sunsets in the months after his passing.

In 2021, on the anniversary of his death, Jason painted his own child a sunset which made him think of his late father.

He recalled: "For some reason, the whole sky was purple, and that was one of his favourite colors. He even painted his car this purple… before I had gotten over my embarrassment as a teenager where I was like, ‘why does my dad have a purple car? Are you the Joker?’

"But he loved purple, and the whole sky was purple on that day. There are things like that where I absolutely understand that I have the choice to go, ‘That’s just a coincidence. The world is random, and it’s all chaos.’

"And then it just gives me more joy and more happiness to choose the other option, which is that there are things at work I don’t understand.”

Jason still remembers his father as someone who had a "gravitational pull" with such a happy influence on those around him.

He added: "He had so much energy and constantly wanted to make us laugh, and it was like he had a gravitational pull.

"When he passed, it was like, wait, how does the world keep spinning without this person?

"And it was an incredibly shocking and painful period of time. It felt like the world was upside down.”