Bruce Willis’s wife Emma Heming Willis has made the difficult decision to move the actor out of their family home as his condition progresses.
Willis, 70, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in February 2023. According to the NHS the disease is uncommon, affects behaviour and language, and gets worse over time.
Due to the degenerative nature of the illness, Heming, 47, said her husband would have wanted their daughters’ lives to be unaffected by adjustments to their home.
The model and entrepreneur married the Die Hard actor in 2009 and the couple went on to have two daughters, 13-year-old Mabel and 11-year-old Evelyn.
“Bruce would want that for our daughters,” she told Diane Sawyer in the ABC special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey.
“He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”
The actor is now living with a full-time care team in a one-storey home as his condition develops and his needs become more complex and intensive.
Heming, who called the choice the “hardest decision”, said she has tried to ensure continuity for the family by taking their daughters to have breakfast and dinner with their dad, and visits Willis “a lot”.
“When we go over, either we're outside, or we're watching a movie,” she explained. “It's just really about being able to be there, and connect with Bruce.
“It is a house that is filled with love, and warmth, and care, and laughter. And it's been beautiful to see that, to see how many of Bruce's friends continue to show up for him, and they bring in life, and fun.”
Providing an update on the star’s health she added: “Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall. It’s just his brain that is failing him.”
She explained that his language abilities are “going”, but the family have “learned to adapt”.
She has written a new book about her experience titled The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path.
“We have a way of communicating with him, which is just a... different way.”
Willis has maintained a strong relationship with his ex-wife Demi Moore, with whom he shares three children: Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. The family have described the condition as a “cruel disease” with no cure.
Earlier this year, Rumer, 37, opened up about the challenges of not being able to converse with her father as she once used to.
In a moving Father’s Day post, she wrote: “Today is hard, I feel a deep ache in my chest to talk to you and tell you everything I’m doing and what’s going on in my life. To hug you and ask you about life and your stories and struggles and successes.”
Hinting at the actor’s loss of memory, she said: “I wish I asked you more questions while you could still tell me about it all.”
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