In a recent article by Tallulah Willis for Vogue, she opened up about Bruce Willis’ dementia diagnosis and how it impacted their family. HOLR breaks it down.

Bruce Willis and his family have gone through tough times after the actor received the dementia diagnosis. In a recent piece for Vogue, his daughter, Tallulah Willis, talked about how the family ignored the early signs and managed to accept the diagnosis.

Bruce Willis Daughter Tallulah Willis

“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.” she said. Tallulah added that the family had initially thought the actor had lost his hearing abilities due to shooting the movie Die Hard.

“But I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time. 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.” she added. Tallulah then opened up about how his new, odd behavior had affected her emotionally. “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.”

Bruce Willis Health Update 2023

In 2022, Bruce Willis’ family announced that the actor had been diagnosed with aphasia. Almost one year later, in February 2023, they shared a more nuanced diagnosis the doctors had given Willis: frontotemporal dementia, HOLR notes here.

As the actor and his family had to learn how to live with the new diagnosis, Tallulah also shared her feelings regarding her father’s health condition. “I keep flipping between the present and the past when I talk about Bruce: he is, he was, he is, he was. That’s because I have hopes for my father that I’m so reluctant to let go of.” she added in the essay.

“I can savor that time, hold my dad’s hand, and feel that it’s wonderful. I know that trials are looming, that this is the beginning of grief, but that whole thing about loving yourself before you can love somebody else — it’s real.” she added.

Published by HOLR Magazine.