Whoopi Goldberg has reflected on her experiences with Bruce Willis while talking to his wife, Emma Heming Willis.
On Wednesday’s episode of The View, Goldberg praised the Die Hard actor while speaking to Heming Willis about her new memoir, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, which hit shelves Tuesday.
In the book, Heming Willis details her journey from receiving her husband’s frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis to how she adapted to the caregiving role while still being a mother to their two daughters, Mabel Ray, 13, and Evelyn Penn, 11.
Goldberg showed Heming Willis a photo of her and Willis as she said, “Your husband was one of the really great guys, one of the first people I ever met when I got famous, and he guided me along quite well. I'm glad he's got you.”
“And I'm glad you've done this,” she continued, referencing the book. “Because it will help anyone, even if you're not going through this, you need to take a look at this book, because you might find that you're going through something. Maybe don't wait until you need it. Maybe get it now.”
Goldberg and Willis have starred in multiple projects together, starting in 1986 when she played a con artist on an episode of Willis’s television series, Moonlighting. Four years later, she starred in Ghost alongside Willis and his ex-wife, Demi Moore, for which she won her first Oscar.
In 1992, she and Willis then starred together in Robert Altman's film The Player.
Last year, in Goldberg’s memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother and Me, she revealed how Willis was involved in her landing one of her lead roles.
“Most of the movie roles I played in the ‘80s and ‘90s were intended for other people,” she wrote. Goldberg further said her part in the 1987 film Burglar was meant for Willis. After he turned the job down, Goldberg then volunteered herself.
Heming Willis’s appearance on The View comes after she explained her decision to move her husband into a separate home amid his dementia diagnosis.
“Dementia plays out differently in everyone’s home and you have to do what’s right for your family dynamic and what’s right for your person,” she said in an interview with People. “It’s heartbreaking to me. But this is how we were able to support our whole family, [and] it has opened up Bruce’s world.”
With her husband — to whom she has been married since 2009 — requiring “a calm and serene atmosphere,” Heming Willis told the publication she decided to move Willis to a home that is more conducive to his needs.
