Bruce Willis’ wife shares the heartbreak of explaining his illness to young daughters
Emma Heming Willis isn’t sugarcoating anything for her two daughters.
That’s what the 46-year-old former model, who shares Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, 10, with legendary actor Bruce Willis, said in a new interview about her husband’s declining health.
“I’ve never tried to sugarcoat anything for them,” she said in an interview with Town & Country, published on Oct. 29. “They’ve grown up with Bruce declining over the years. I’m not trying to shield them from it.”
Willis, 69, retired from acting in 2022 after his family announced he was diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that makes it difficult to communicate, understand, read, and write.
He was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) the following year.
“Finally getting to a diagnosis was key so that I could learn what frontotemporal dementia is and I could educate our children,” Heming Willis said in the interview.
She said that she lets her children take the lead when discussing his health, which is something she learned from her therapist.
“If children ask questions, they’re ready to know the answer,” she said. “If we could see that Bruce was struggling, I would address it with the kids so they could understand.”
Though Mabel and Evelyn know their father isn’t going to get better, Heming Willis has yet to reveal to them how severe his illness is.
“Obviously, I don’t like to speak about the terminal side of this with them, nor have they asked,” she said, adding that the disease is “chronic, progressive, and terminal.”
FTD is “a group of disorders caused by progressive nerve cell loss in the brain’s frontal lobes,” according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Symptoms include personality and behavior changes, difficulty speaking, lack of judgment or inhibition, loss of empathy and interest, compulsive behaviors, and inappropriate social behavior.
There is no cure for FTD, and no treatments can slow or stop its progression.
Later in the interview, Heming Willis talked about how her family’s plans have changed since learning of her husband’s illness.
While that means letting go of their old story, it also means writing a new one.
“We had so many plans, so many beautiful things we wanted to do with our girls, so many things that we wanted to experience together,” she said, adding that she had to “just rip that page out completely.”
“And then how do you rewrite the story?” she asked. “I’m learning how to take some control back. It might not be the most beautiful story I could have thought of, but there are cracks of light.”
Despite the change of plans, Heming Willis isn’t letting FTD take her “whole family down” because that’s not what her husband would want. He would want her to fight for their family, so that’s what she’s doing.
Fortunately, she doesn’t have to do that alone.
“The family respects the way I’m looking after him; they really support me,” she said of her blended family with Willis. “If I need to vent, if I need to cry, if I need to rage — because all of that can happen and it’s okay to have those feelings — they are always there to listen.”
Aside from his two younger children, Willis also shares Rumer Willis, 36, Scout Willis, 33, and Tallulah Willis, 30, with ex-wife Demi Moore.