Bruce Willis’ life took an unexpected turn in 2022 when he had to retire from acting due to developing frontotemporal dementia. This degenerative disorder has not only affected the talented actor, but his family as a whole. His wife, Emma Heming Willis, talked about how she first noticed changes in her husband, and that “never in my wildest dreams” would she have known that was a symptom.
What was originally diagnosed in Bruce Willis as aphasia was updated to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which negatively affects the beloved actor’s personality, behavior, and speech. While on NewsNation to promote her memoir The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, Emma Heming Willis, revealed when she first suspected something was wrong with her husband, and it’s a tiny detail that only someone paying close attention would notice:
I think for me what I noticed was that his stutter started to come back. Bruce had a severe stutter when he was a child that he held onto, actually, his life, but was able to kind of get a handle on it, I think, in his adult years. Then I started seeing that it started coming back. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that was now becoming a symptom of FTD.
It’s a good thing that Heming Willis recalled her husband’s knowledge of his childhood stutter, or his speech problem coming back could have been overlooked. According to FTDtalk, the neurodegenerative disease causes the brain to have trouble planning how the speech muscles create words, resulting in issues with speaking words or having a stutter.
The British-American businesswoman said to NewNation that despite Willis’ dementia affecting his communication, “we don’t need words.” Heming Willis previously said that Die Hard actor has a special way of expressing himself through his “hearty laugh” or a “twinkle in his eye.” As the two clearly share a powerful love for one another, it’s evident that their connection goes beyond language, that no disease can take away from them.
The one “blessing” and “curse” that the Malta native said came from Bruce Willis’ health condition was him not having to “tap into” the disorder, but Heming Willis having to carry that for him. The Coco Baba founder has never held back on the “toll” that FTD has had on herself and her whole family. She's said that constantly putting others first has made it hard for her to attend to her own needs.
This past summer, Emma Heming Willis took a big step in having the Sixth Sense actor live in a separate household from their young daughters, believing it’s what he’d want for them. Not far from their family home, Willis would receive help from a full-time care team. His kids have apparently still been able to visit him, regularly seeing him for breakfast and dinner. This may have been a difficult decision for Willis’ wife to make, but it's a selfless one to ensure the retired actor receives as much health care as possible and a sense of normalcy for their kids.
Emma Heming Willis may have never in her “wildest dreams” pictured her husband’s stutter coming back meant he had FTD. However, she’s met the diagnosis with great love for Willis, channeling her energy into helping him and spreading awareness of this rare disease. Make sure to read Heming Willis’ book, The Unexpected Journey, available on Amazon and at your local bookstore.
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