Bruce Willis’ Wife Emma Heming Willis Says He “Doesn’t Know” About Dementia Diagnosis
Emma Heming Willis is correcting the narrative around Bruce Willis’ diagnosis.
Three years after his family announced that the Die Hard actor had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), his wife of 17 years explained that the disease—which affects the frontal lobe and the temporal lobes—actually has “three different variants.”
“The one that Bruce has affects language,” Heming shared on the June 15 episode of Bossticks. “But there’s another variant that will affect behavior and another one that could affect movement.”
The 47-year-old noted that Willis’ FTD does not affect his memory and that he still remembers her and their daughters Mabel, 14, and Evelyn, 12, as well as his daughters Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 32, who he shares with ex-wife Demi Moore.
“That’s a different part of the brain. So when people say, ‘Oh, does he remember who you are?’ Well, he does because he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, he has FTD,” Heming said. “I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory loss.”
And while Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, the model added that “FTD is the most common form of dementia for people under the age of 60.”
Willis’ diagnosis has also meant that she has found herself in the role of caretaker for the 71-year-old, which feels to her like she’s facing an “ambiguous loss.”
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“It’s grieving someone who is alive,” she explained of the term. “And that is what many people who are caregivers to someone with dementia experience, because your person is there physically but maybe not mentally or emotionally.”
She’s also found that all forms of dementia “take and they take and they take, sometimes very slowly,” meaning that Heming and those in her position can feel like they are “grieving different losses all the time.”
“You are consistently in grief. I've just learned how to navigate it,” she said. “Maybe I'm a little bit more used to it at this point than I was early on. But yeah, you are just sitting with it and moving alongside of it.”
Much like Heming, Willis’ children have also felt the wide range of emotions that can appear when navigating FTD, although daughter Rumer has found one silver lining.
“I love getting over to go see him,” Rumer—who shares daughter Louetta, 3, with ex Derek Richard Thomas—explained on The Inside Edit in May. “I’m so grateful that I have a child that got to meet him because I don’t know if my sisters will have that.”
She has even noticed a change in her father’s demeanor since his FTD diagnosis.
“There’s this sweetness,” Rumer said. “He’s always been this macho dude and now there’s this—fragile is not the right word—but like a tenderness that maybe being Bruce Willis might not have allowed him in a way.”
For more about Willis’ family, keep reading.
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Bruce Willis and Demi Moore
Up-and-coming movie stars Bruce Willis and Demi Moore met at the August 1987 premiere of the cop comedy Stakeout—which, neither was in, but Demi was there to support one of the film's stars, her ex-fiancé Emilio Estevez.
Bruce was newly single and Demi, who was married to Freddy Moore from 1981 to 1985, was ready to mingle.
"We went all in, right away," the Ghost star wrote in her 2019 memoir Inside Out, "talking about how badly we both wanted to have kids, our own family."
Just a few months after meeting, they were in Las Vegas to catch a boxing match when they eloped, tying the knot at the Golden Nugget hotel on Nov. 21, 1987. A month later, they threw a bigger wedding, with Little Richard officiating their vows.
While Demi later detailed in her book just how precarious their marriage was at times (not least when Bruce mentioned in 1990 that he wasn't sure he wanted to be married at all), they were outwardly a Hollywood golden couple right up until they announced in 1998 that they were separating.
But they remained a family unit.
"I still love Demi. We're very close," Bruce told Rolling Stone in 2000. "We have three children whom we will continue to raise together, and we’re probably as close now as we ever were. We realize we have a lifelong commitment to our kids. Our friendship continues."
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Rumer Willis
Demi has said she and Bruce started trying to have a child even before their whirlwind wedding.
And it's conceivable that they were successful, because daughter Rumer Glenn Willis was born Aug. 16, 1988, in Paducah, Ky., where her dad was filming In Country.
Home movies of Rumer's birth were apparently the main attraction when her parents entertained for the next few years.
"Bruce never left me in the entire 15 hours of labor," Demi told Vanity Fair in 1991, "except to go to the bathroom once."
Rumer was 9 when her mom and dad split up and she remains impressed to this day at their co-parenting skills, telling People in October 2024, "We never had to split family vacations or Christmases or birthdays."
As she told Larry King in 2015, "They always made an effort to do all of the family events still together and made such an effort to still have our family be as one unit, as opposed to two separate things, which I think really made an impact."
Rumer Willis/Instagram
Louetta Thomas Willis
Rumer welcomed daughter Louetta Isley Thomas Willis with musician Derek Richard Thomas on April 18, 2022.
The My Divorce Party actress has explained that her baby's names are a hybrid of her dad's favorite singers, Louie Armstrong, Etta James and the Isley Brothers.
"She's just a pure joy," happy grandmother Demi told E! News in January 2024. "It really is all the clichés. You get all the fun and joy, and you get to go to bed early and have a good night's sleep."
Rumer and Derek split up in August 2024, but she tipped her hat to her mom and dad for providing an "unbelievable example" of what co-parenting could look like.
"Derek's my best friend, and that has not changed," Rumer told People in October 2024. "We have found an amazing way to keep our friendship and our loving co-parenting relationship. And I think both of us are so happy that we can have that for ourselves as well as for Lou."
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Scout Willis
Scout LaRue Willis was born July 20, 1991, in Sun Valley, Idaho, her parents having decided to spend their kids' formative years away from Hollywood.
Not that they didn't do glitz and glam.
Demi was pregnant with her second daughter when she famously posed nude for the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair, a maternity shoot that has been endlessly imitated.
"Pregnancy agrees with me," she told the magazine. "I feel comfortable."
While she dabbled in acting in a few of her parents' films as a kid, Scout was geared more toward photography and music, the Brown University grad releasing her self-titled debut album in 2022.
But she loves a good movie, and months before Demi won a Golden Globe for The Substance, Scout raved about her mom's performance in the darkly funny body horror film.
"I thought, ‘Wow, this woman is who I look up to,’ and she's so unbelievably beautiful, so unbelievably talented and her willingness to show up in that space and be 100 percent herself,” Scout told Us Weekly in November 2024. "It's a service to share that and knowing how many people she touched, she was willing to be that courageous.”
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Tallulah Willis
Tallulah Belle Willis was born Feb. 3, 1994, in Hailey, Idaho.
"I've heard all kinds of explanations, that God is paying me back for something," Bruce told Rolling Stone in 2000, acknowledging that some thought it ironic the action star was a girl dad. "But I’ll tell you, I would have three more daughters tomorrow. They’re great."
The Willis-Moore household relocated from Idaho to L.A. when Tallulah was in third grade, meaning she got a bit more of a Hollywood upbringing than her sisters—and it wasn't great.
The founder of the clothing line Wyllis has candidly discussed getting sober at 20, entering treatment for depression at 25 and then battling anorexia. She explained in a 2023 Vogue essay that medication she was prescribed for ADHD, while helpful, was also an appetite-suppressant, intensifying her fixation on her weight.
Another trip to treatment after her father started to decline—the family went public with Bruce's aphasia diagnosis in March 2022—included Tallulah being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
"Recovery is probably lifelong," she wrote in Vogue, "but I now have the tools to be present in all facets of my life, and especially in my relationship with my dad."
Tallulah announced her engagement to musician boyfriend Justin Acee on Christmas Eve. He proposed at his future mother-in-law's home in Idaho, ensuring a member of the family would capture the moment on video.
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Emma Heming Willis
Bruce didn't think another great love was in the cards for him after he and Demi divorced, until he met Malta-born model Emma Heming at the gym of the trainer they happened to share in 2007.
"I spent the last 10 years single and, for the most part, unhappy," the Die Hard star told W in 2009. "In a dark place. I never thought that being with someone else was the answer. I would say, 'I'm alone, but I'm not lonely.' But I was just kidding myself."
After he started seeing Emma, who's 23 years his junior, "on a day-to-day basis my life became much happier."
They tied the knot March 21, 2009, on the beach at their home in Turks and Caicos. Along with Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, Demi was in attendance with then-husband Ashton Kutcher. (They split up in 2011 after six years of marriage.)
Marking 17 years of togetherness on Dec. 29, 2024, Emma—who's been candid about the difficulties of her husband's condition—posted about the "unconditional love" that fuels her.
"I feel blessed to know it, and it’s because of him," she wrote. "I'd do it all over again and again in a heartbeat."
After Bruce was diagnosed with aphasia and, months later, dementia, Emma cofounded the supplement company Make Time Wellness, with a focus on brain health and prenatal wellness, and launched the Make Time Podcast.
"It's important to use our voices," Emma told E! News in 2023, "because through action, awareness and conversation, that creates change."
Instagram/Emma Heming Willis
Mabel Willis
Emma and Bruce welcomed daughter Mabel Ray Willis on April 1, 2012, in L.A., but the family relocated to Bedford Hills, N.Y.
"The beauty of where we live is that it's close to the city," Emma told Elle Decor in 2017, "so we get the best of both worlds."
But distance didn't prevent the ladies of Willis-Moore from forming a tight bond: Scout, Tallulah and Demi were there to celebrate Mabel's sixth-grade graduation in June 2024.
"We love her!!!" Tallulah commented on Instagram. "7th grade here we go!"
Emma Heming Willis/Instagram
Evelyn Willis
After Evelyn Penn Willis arrived on May 5, 2014, Bruce expressed his satisfaction that he was now a father of five girls.
"We didn't know what we were gonna have until the baby came out," he told People a week later. "In general, I think women should be in charge of everything. Women are just much smarter than men."
And he just went with the flow, according to Emma, who told Elle Decor that Bruce was "awesome" about "constantly sharing" his free time with their daughters.
"I think he’s been so used to having kids for so long," she said, "and knowing his time really isn’t his own anymore, that he’s very generous with it."
They considered themselves "traditional" in how they "put family first," Emma explained. "We believe in raising our children with manners and poise, and we impress upon them the importance of learning and education. But we are also very free in allowing them to express themselves through whatever form or behavior that might take—within reason, of course. We don’t ever want our kids to feel entitled. So we make sure to strike a good balance as best as we know how."
And while she's been pretty frank with both Mabel and Evelyn about their dad's condition, Emma is also focused on creating lots of happy memories, sharing videos from their recent girls' trip to Paris and putting up Christmas decorations back home.
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