Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's daughter, Tallulah Willis, noticed changes to her dad long before his dementia diagnosis. The Hollywood actor was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2023, a year after he decided to step away from the spotlight and retire from acting to focus on his health and family. Bruce, 69, is now said to be non-verbal and his wife, Emma Willis, has said there is a lot of "grief and sadness" in their home.
The Die Hard actor shares three daughters, Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 30, with his ex-wife Demi and two daughters, Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, nine, with his current wife, Emma. In early 2022, the Willis family learned that Bruce was suffering from aphasia, a brain-mediated inability to speak to understand speech.
In a candid chat with Vogue in 2023, Tallulah opened up about the early signs of aphasia and how she grew worried after her dad distanced himself slightly. Discussing Bruce's 2022 diagnosis, she said: "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'. 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.".
Tallulah said she "tortured" herself with the belief that she wasn't interesting enough for her famous father, but later discovered that unresponsiveness was one of the early signs of aphasia. She continued: "In the past, I was so afraid of being destroyed by sadness, but finally I feel that I can show up and be relied upon.".
