Hollywood actor Bruce Willis’ wife has opened up on how her husband has become a ‘blessing’ and a ‘curse’ for the family.
She also talked about how the family is handling his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis. The Die Hard actor’s family announced in March 2022 that he was diagnosed with aphasia, which was impacting his cognitive abilities. This year in February, he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
His wife, Emma Heming Willis, said on NBC’s ‘TODAY’ show, “What I’m learning is that dementia is hard. It’s hard on the person diagnosed, it’s also hard on the family.” She continued that it was no different for Bruce, on her herself and on their children. “And when they say that this is a family disease, it really is,” she said.
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The couple have two young daughters. Bruce Willis, 68, has three adult daughters with his first wife, Demi Moore. When asked if Willis is aware of his own condition, Heming Willis said: “Hard to know.” Heming Willis called her husband’s diagnosis “the blessing and the curse.”
“Honestly, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Love. Patience. Resilience. So much and he’s teaching me and our whole family. For me to be out here doing this, this is not my comfort zone. This is the power of Bruce,” she said.
Still, she maintained, there’s “so many beautiful things happening in our lives.” “It’s just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so I can see what is happening around us. Bruce would really want us to be in the joy of what is,” she added. “He would really want that for me and our family.”
Dementia
Dementia is not a specific disease but is rather a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with everyday activities. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.
Symptoms
- Experiencing memory loss, poor judgment, and confusion.
- Difficulty speaking, understanding, and expressing thoughts, or reading and writing.
- Wandering and getting lost in a familiar neighborhood.
- Trouble handling money responsibly and paying bills.
- Repeating questions.
Cure
There is no cure for FTD, although medications can improve quality of life by reducing agitation, irritability, and depression sometimes associated with it, according to the National Institute on Aging.
