Bruce Willis’ Health: His Battle With Frontotemporal Dementia Diagnosis & How He’s Doing Now
Bruce Willis continues to enjoy his time with his family after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Here’s what we know about his condition.
- Bruce Willis is best known for his roles in Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense.
- In 2022, his family announced that Bruce was diagnosed with aphasia, a neurological disorder affecting speech.
- The following year, his family announced his condition had worsened, and he’d developed frontotemporal dementia.
Bruce Willis is one of the most beloved and celebrated actors in film and television history. He got his start on the legendary 1980s comedy drama Moonlighting, before landing a breakthrough film role in 1988’s Die Hard. He showcased his comedy chops in the Look Who’s Talking series, and continued his rise as an action star with the first two Die Hard sequels. After a dip in his career, he returned to the public eye thanks to Pulp Fiction, as well as 12 Monkeys, The Fifth Element, Armageddon, and The Sixth Sense. In the 2000s and 2010s, he enjoyed success as an action star (The Expendables, Red) and as a dramatic/comedic actor (Looper, Moonrise Kingdom.) Sadly, in the 2020s, his health began to decline, and his career began to frazzle, with him appearing more frequently in lower-budget films.
Sadly, Bruce’s career came to a close in 2022 when his family made the heartbreaking announcement: he had been diagnosed with aphasia, a disorder affecting his cognitive abilities. “As a result of this and with much consideration, Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him,” read a statement shared by his family on social media: wife, Emma Heming Willis, ex-wife Demi Moore, and his daughters, Rumer Willis, Tallulah Willis, Scout Willis, Mabel Willis, and Evelyn Willis.
Sadly, a year after the first announcement, the family gave an update: Bruce had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. “Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis,” the family wrote.
Despite this news, Bruce continued to remain in good spirits. He celebrated his 68th in 2023 with his family, a bittersweet moment to some knowing his struggles. As he continues to live his life to its fullest, here’s what we know about his condition.
“Ours is just one family with a loved one who suffers from FTD, and we encourage others facing it to seek out the wealth of information and support available through AFTD (@theaftd, theaftd.org). And for those of you who have been fortunate enough to not have any personal experience with FTD, we hope that you will take the time to learn about it and support AFTD’s mission in whatever way you can.”
How Long Has Bruce Willis Been Sick?
In the case of Bruce, there were some suspicions that he was struggling with the condition years before the announcement. Mike Burns, director of Out of Death, wrote in an email about how Bruce’s role needed to be reduced. “We also need to abbreviate his dialogue a bit so that there are no monologues, etc,” he wrote, per the Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles Times also reported that “those who have worked with the elder Willis on his recent films, the actor has been exhibiting signs of decline in recent years. In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis’ well-being.” The unnamed individuals “questioned whether the actor was fully aware of his surroundings on set,” how he “grappled with his loss of mental acuity,” and had an “inability to remember his dialogue.”
Lala Kent, who appeared in Hard Kill, recounted an incident. “I’m supposed to think my life is about to end, and then my dad steps in to save the day,” Kent told the Times. Bruce was supposed to deliver a line that cued Kent to duck before he fired his gun at a villain.
Bruce didn’t and fired the prop gun before saying the line. “Because my back was to him, I wasn’t aware of what was happening behind me. But the first time, it was like, ‘No big deal, let’s reset,’” she said. The same thing reportedly happened on a second and third take, per the Los Angeles Times (a crew member stressed that they always made sure everyone was safe and not in the line of fire.) Randall Emmett, Kent’s ex and producer on the film, denied this incident happened, as did the film’s armorer.
In a May 2023 essay for Vogue, Tallulah opened up about realizing her dad’s mental state had changed years before learning of his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis. When she was a teenager (she was 29 when she shared the personal essay), she noticed her dad seem uninterested in her and sometimes generally unresponsive to what was going on around him. She and her family originally blamed it on “Hollywood hearing loss.”
However, she began to take things to heart and figured the actor no longer cared about her since he started a new family with Emma. “Later, that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally,” she recalled. “He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father.”
How Is Bruce Willis Doing TOday?
On March 19, 2023, Bruce Willis turned 68. He did so while surrounded by his loved ones. In a video shared on Demi Moore’s Instagram, his family sang “Happy Birthday” to him. The Die Hard actor was all smiles while conducting this chorus. “Just like that,” he said. He even pulled a fake out when it came time to blow out his birthday candle.
“So today is my husband’s birthday. I have started the morning by crying, as you can see by my swollen eyes and snotty nose,” commented Bruce’s wife Emma in a video posted to her Instagram. “I just think it’s important that you see all sides of this. I always get this message, or people tell me, ‘Oh, you’re so strong, I don’t know how you do it.’ I’m not given a choice. I wish I was. But I’m also raising two kids in this, so sometimes in our lives, we have to put our big girl panties on and get to it, and that’s what I’m doing. But I do have times of sadness every day, grief every day, and I’m really feeling it today on his birthday.”
In November 2023, Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron claimed that Bruce is “not totally verbal” anymore during an interview with the New York Post.
“He used to be a voracious reader — he didn’t want anyone to know that — and he’s not reading now,” Glenn said. “All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce.”