Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, is shutting down the stigma surrounding dementia.
“Bruce, he’s very present,” Heming Willis, 50, said in Entertainment Weekly’s Wednesday, September 9, sneak peek at her new interview on the MS NOW talk series Because We Care with Richard Lui.
She continued, “We have still so many beautiful moments of joy and connection, and I think that’s really important to share because I think there’s such a negative narrative around dementia. We need to be careful and reframe that. When we think about that or don’t want to talk about dementia and put it in a corner, the person living with the disease and their caregiver aren’t seen, they aren’t supported.”
Heming Willis added that she feels “it’s important to know that it’s hard and it’s a terrible disease, but we have so many moments of joy and connection that aren’t your norm, but it’s OK.”
Heming Willis concluded that she and her family have “learned to adapt and show up for Bruce.” (Heming Willis and Willis, 71, who tied the knot in 2009, share daughters Mabel, 14, and Evelyn, 12. Willis is also a dad to daughters Rumer, 38, Scout, 35, and Tallulah, 32, with ex-wife Demi Moore.)
Willis’ family initially announced in March 2022 that the Die Hard actor had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects cognitive and communicative abilities. Nearly one year later, in February 2023, they revealed that his condition had progressed to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a group of brain diseases affecting the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, which are associated with personality, behavior and language.
Throughout her husband’s health battle, Heming Willis has shared frequent updates on Willis’ condition and continued to spread awareness of his illness. In June, the model shut down a common “misconception” about FTD.
“It’s called frontotemporal dementia. Or FTD for short. It affects the frontal lobe and the temporal lobes. This is executive decision, just your everyday sort of functioning, language [and] compression. That’s in your temporal lobe. The variant, because there’s three different types of variants of FTD, the one that Bruce has affects language,” she explained on the “Bossticks” podcast. “But there’s another variant that will affect behavior and another one that could affect movement. So here’s three different variants to FTD.”
When asked whether Willis’ diagnosis affects his memory, Heming Willis replied, “No, it doesn’t.”
“That’s a different part of the brain,” she continued. “So when people say, ‘Oh, does he remember who you are?’ Well, he does because he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s; he has FTD. I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory loss.”
Still, Heming Willis has shared that Willis isn’t always aware of his condition.
“I think they think this is their normal. That’s not for everybody. There’s this term — this neurological condition that comes with FTD and other types of dementia — called anosognosia, where your brain can’t identify what’s happening to it,” she said on the “Conversations With Cam” podcast in January. “People think this might be denial, they don’t want to go to the doctor because they’re like, ‘I’m fine’ — this is where the anosognosia comes into play. It’s not denial; it’s just that their brain is changing. This is a part of the disease.”
