Bruce Willis’ wife has revealed one symptom doctors overlooked as a sign of his dementia.

January 24, 2025: Bruce Willis‘ stuttering was dismissed by health professionals as an early symptom of his dementia.

Stuttering Dismissed as a Symptom of Dementia

The ‘Die Hard’ star suffered from a language disorder as a child, and when doctors assessed him, they didn’t think it signaled he was suffering from the neurocognitive disorder. However, they later diagnosed him with frontotemporal dementia in 2023.

Speaking to Town and Country magazine, his wife, Emma Heming Willis, 46, said: “He had a severe stutter as a child.

He went to college, and there was a theatre teacher who said, ‘I’ve got something that’s going to help you.’ Bruce has always had a stutter, but he has been good at covering it up. So, when he began to experience difficulties with language, it seemed like it was just a part of his stutter.

“Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young.”

The 69-year-old Hollywood star had initially been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects a person’s ability to speak and understand others, in 2022.

Tallulah Willis Speaks Out About Her Father’s Decline

Bruce and his ex-wife Demi Moore’s daughter Tallulah, 30, previously admitted she knew something wasn’t right with her dad before his diagnosis.

In an essay for Vogue, Tallulah penned: “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.

“Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally.”

Bruce’s Family Coping with His Health Battles

Bruce also has Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, with ‘Ghost’ star Demi, and two daughters, Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, nine, with his current wife, Emma.

And Tallulah added she felt like her dad had “lost interest” in her when he had his daughters with Emma and was struggling with an eating disorder as his condition worsened.

She said about her fear he was focusing too much on his new family:

“Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty maths: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father…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.

I’ve struggled with anorexia nervosa for the past four years, which I’ve been reluctant to discuss. After getting sober at 20, restricting food became the last vice I could hold on to. By spring 2022, I weighed around 84 pounds.

“I was always freezing. I was calling mobile IV teams to come to my house, and I couldn’t walk in my Los Angeles neighbourhood because I was afraid of not having a place to sit down and catch my breath.”

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Published by HOLR Magazine

Sources: Die Hard, Town and Country, Health

Image Credit: BANG SHOWBIZ