As Hollywood rallies around Bruce Willis after his family revealed his aphasia diagnosis, Kevin Smith is taking ownership of his past comments.
The director worked with Willis, 67, on 2010’s Cop Out alongside Tracy Morgan. Smith later referred to the experience as “f—king soul-crushing,” telling Marc Maron that Willis “wouldn’t even sit for a f—king poster shoot.”
On Wednesday, March 30, Smith tweeted: “Long before any of the Cop Out stuff, I was a big Bruce Willis fan – so this is really heartbreaking to read. He loved to act and sing and the loss of that has to be devastating for him. I feel like an a**hole for my petty complaints from 2010. So sorry to BW and his family.”
The filmmaker’s post came hours after Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, his ex-wife, Demi Moore, and his daughters announced the Die Hard star was “stepping back” from his career amid his battle with aphasia.
“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” the joint statement read. “We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him.”
The Golden Raspberry Awards, known as the Razzies, which acts as a satirical counterpart to the Academy Awards, subsequently addressed its decision to create the “Worst Performance By Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie” award last year.
“The Razzies are truly sorry for #BruceWillis diagnosed condition. Perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021. Our best wishes to Bruce and family,” the Twitter account for the awards show tweeted on Wednesday. “To clarify, we heard about Willis’ diagnosis at the same time everyone else did … just this morning.”
Amid backlash for the response, cofounders John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy released a statement to IndieWire: “We are truly sorry to hear about Willis’ diagnosis, of which we were unaware until the story broke earlier today. In Willis’ defense, perhaps his reps should not have let him do such a high volume of work in so short a time. We offer our best wishes to Bruce and his family.”
They later followed up their statement to the publication with: “We are still discussing how to handle the news about Willis’ diagnosis and will get back to you.”
