Bruce Willis has been moved out of his family home as his frontotemporal dementia (FTD) progresses, his wife Emma Heming Willis has confirmed. The 70-year-old actor now lives in a one-storey home with a full-time care team, a decision Heming described as the "hardest decision" she has had to make.
Heming, 47, said the move was made to ensure that the couple's two daughters, 13-year-old Mabel and 11-year-old Evelyn, could continue living in a home tailored to their needs. "Bruce would want that for our daughters," she told Diane Sawyer in the ABC special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey. "He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs."
The model and entrepreneur, who married Willis in 2009, said she has tried to maintain continuity for the family by taking their daughters to have breakfast and dinner with their father and visiting him regularly. "When we go over, either we're outside, or we're watching a movie," she explained. "It's just really about being able to be there, and connect with Bruce."
Describing Willis's current health, Heming said: "Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall. It's just his brain that is failing him." She added that his language abilities are "going" but the family have "learned to adapt" and found a different way of communicating.
Willis was diagnosed with FTD in February 2023. The condition, which the NHS describes as uncommon, affects behaviour and language and worsens over time. He shares three children with ex-wife Demi Moore: Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. Earlier this year, Rumer, 37, spoke of her difficulty in not being able to converse with her father as she once did, writing in a Father's Day post: "Today is hard, I feel a deep ache in my chest to talk to you and tell you everything I'm doing and what's going on in my life."
Heming has written a book about her caregiving experience, titled The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path. The family have described the condition as a "cruel disease" with no cure.
