Bruce Willis’s wife, Emma Heming Willis, has opened up about her experience coping with the actor’s dementia diagnosis.
The Die Hard star’s family announced his diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a degenerative brain condition that impacts communication and behavior, in February 2023.
Speaking with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer on the ABC special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey, Heming Willis — to whom Bruce has been married since 2009 — opened up about the isolating nature of her husband’s shocking diagnosis.
“To leave there with nothing, just nothing, with a diagnosis I couldn’t pronounce, I couldn’t understand what it was,” Heming Willis, 47, recalled of hearing the news from doctors. “I was so panicked. I remember hearing it and not hearing anything else. I was free-falling.”
“I really felt like I was so alone, so isolated, felt like what we were going through as a family, what Bruce was going through, was so singular,” she continued.
She stepped in to become Bruce’s 24/7 caregiver in addition to her responsibilities tending to the two young daughters she shares with him. Part of that meant limiting her daughters’ activities in the house, such as playdates and sleepovers, which presented a different set of challenges to navigate.
“I didn't know if parents would feel comfortable leaving their child at our home, so, again, not only was I isolated, I isolated our whole family. You know, the girls were isolated too, and that was by design, I was doing that,” Heming Willis explained.
“It was a hard time. It was a really hard time.”
Sharing an update on her husband’s health, Heming Willis — who has written a new book about her experience titled The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path — said: “Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know. It’s just his brain that is failing him.”
“The language is going, and, you know, we've learned to adapt," she continued. “And we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a... different way.”
Elsewhere in the special, Sawyer asked Heming Willis if there were days when she still sees glimpses of her husband’s old self.
“Not days, but we get moments,” she responded. “It’s his laugh, right? Like, he has such, like, a hearty laugh. And, you know, sometimes you'll see that twinkle in his eye, or that smirk, and, you know, I just get, like, transported.”
She added: “And it’s just hard to see, because as quickly as those moments appear, then it goes. It’s hard. But I’m grateful. I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here.”
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