Bruce Willis’ daughter reveals she ‘tortured’ herself after making mistake with his dementia diagnosis
Tallulah Willis explained how she now ‘savors’ the time she has with her dad
News of Bruce Willis’ rapidly deteriorating health sent shockwaves through Hollywood and the rest of the world, but none more so than family – including his daughter, Tallulah Willis.
The Die Hard actor was once a staple in the action genre, but having taken a step back from acting in 2022, he has since been forced into retirement, having been diagnosed with dementia, or more specifically, frontotemporal degeneration (FTD).
According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition affects the frontal and temporal lobe in the brain – the areas of the brain associated with personality, behavior, and language.
Tallulah has since spoken out about how her 69-year-old father’s diagnosis affected her personally, as she spoke candidly in an interview with Vogue back in 2023.
“My family announced in early 2022 that Bruce Willis was suffering from aphasia, a brain-mediated inability to speak or to understand speech, and we learned earlier this year that that symptom was a feature of frontotemporal dementia, a progressive neurological disorder that chips away at his cognition and behavior day by day. But I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time,” she explained.
“It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears’. Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally.
“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.”
She continued: “I admit that I have met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of. The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it.”
Tallulah went on to explain how she had suffered with body dysmorphia, which is a mental health condition where people are consumed by the worry of their appearance.
She explained how her dad still recognizes her, ‘give or take a bad day’, and she now tries to ‘savor that time’ that she spends with him.
Before heartbreakingly explaining how she feels that ‘this is the beginning of grief’.
“There’s this little creature changing by the hour, and there’s this thing happening with my dad that can shift so quickly and unpredictably,” she added.
“It feels like a unique and special time in my family, and I’m just so glad to be here for it.”