Bruce Willis’ wife Emma Heming Willis broke down in tears as she gave a searingly emotional update on the actor’s dementia battle.
The Die Hard star was diagnosed with aphasia - a brain disorder that leads to difficulty with language or speech - in 2022.
A year later, the Sixth Sense actor, 70, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, an aggressive and rare form of dementia.
Heming Willis revealed the actor’s “brain is failing him” and his “language is going”, becoming emotional as she described how she still sees “moments” of his old self.
“Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know,” Heming Willis told Diane Sawyer in an ABC special on Tuesday.
“It’s just his brain that is failing him. The language is going. We’ve learned to adapt and we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a different way.”
Heming Willis, 47, said there are still times where her husband displays a “spark” of his playful personality.
“We still get those days,” she told Sawyer, welling up.
“Not days, but moments. It’s his laugh. He has such a hearty laugh. And sometimes you’ll get that twinkle in his eye or that spark.
“And I just get transported. It’s just hard to see because as quickly as those moments appear, then it goes.”
The former model and activist - who shares daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, with Willis - also described the actor’s early symptoms.
“For someone who was very talkative and very engaged, he was just a little more quiet and, when the family would get together, he would just melt a little bit,” she said.
“He felt a little removed, a little cold, not like Bruce who was very warm and very affectionate. To go the complete opposite of that was alarming and scary.”
When Heming Willis first learned the diagnosis, she said: “I was so panicked and I just remembering hearing it and not hearing anything else.
“It was like I was freefalling.”
Heming Willis married the actor in 2009.
The Pulp Fiction star was previously married to Demi Moore and they have three daughters together - Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 31.
The 60-minute ABC News special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey is available to watch on Hulu and Disney+.
Heming Willis has written a book The Unexpected Journey about Willis’ health journey and her role as his caregiver which will be available to buy on September 9.
