Rumer Willis, the eldest daughter ofBruce Willisand Demi Moore, penned a heartbreaking Father’s Day tribute to her dad amid hisbattle with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). She admitted to finding the day “hard” in an emotionally charged message she composed in the caption of an Instagram post that featured a carousel of photos of her and her father over the years, including one of theDie Hardstar with her daughter Louetta. She also expressed gratitude for the precious moments that she gets to spend with him, writing candidly:
“Today is hard, I feel a deep ache in my chest to talk to you and tell you everything I’m doing and what’s going on in my life. To hug you and ask you about life and your stories and struggles and successes. I wish I asked you more questions while you could still tell me about it all. But I know you wouldn’t want me to be sad today so I’ll attempt to just be grateful reminding myself how lucky I am that you’re my dad and that you’re still with me and I can still hold you and hug you and kiss your cheek and rub your head I can tell you stories. I can watch the way your eyes light up when you see Louetta I will be grateful for every moment I have with you. I love you so much dad happy Father’s Day. Sending love to all those who are in the boat with me or have lost their fathers, to the single moms who are the dads too, to my future baby daddy.”
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Frontotemporal dementia is part of a group of disorders caused by progressive nerve cell loss in the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes that can cause changes in personality, behavior, and language. Willis received his diagnosis one year afterhe retired from actingbecause he was reportedly starting to experience challenges with his speech. Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator ofMoonlighting, in which Willis gained significant recognition for his role opposite Cybill Shepherd, later shared an update, explaining that the disorder hadrendered the actor “not totally verbal"and his “joie de vivre is gone,“though he assured fans, “he’s still Bruce.”
Willis' family have continued to share regular progress reports on the actor’s health and his life with the debilitating condition. Rumer provideda brief but positive updatein March, saying that her father was “doing great” ahead of his 70th birthday. However, her most recent post delves deeper into the challenges he is facing, which seem to largely be around memory and communication, as she revealed that she yearns to speak to him and hear his stories, and regrets not asking him questions while he still had the ability to answer them.
Bruce Willis' Wife Praises His “Resilience” and “Quiet Strength”
Emma Heming Willis, who married Bruce in 2009, and shares two daughters Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, 10, with him, shared a heartfelt Father’s Day message of her own on Instagram. Her tribute was dedicated to “all the dads living with disability or disease, showing up in the ways they can and to the children who show up for them.” She praised her husband for the qualities that he has exuded throughout his ongoing battle, and acknowledged how she has changed her outlook on how to cope with it as a spouse. She wrote in the caption of her post:
“What Bruce teaches our girls goes far beyond words. Resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength in simply being present… But to be fair to myself, these symbolic days stir up a lot. I’m profoundly sad today. I wish, with every cell in my body, that things could be different for him and lighter for our family. As they say in our FTD community, ‘It is what it is.’ And while that might sound dismissive, to me, it’s not. It grounds me. It helps me return to the acceptance of what is and not fight this every step of the way like I used to. Today, let’s celebrate the badass dads, those who are here, and those we carry with us.”
Heming has written a deeply personal support guide to help caregivers of loved ones with dementia to navigate it with strength and support. The upcoming book, titledThe Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, also details how Bruce managed to find ways tocontinue working amid his health decline, as he continued to appear in films during the early stages of the degenerative disease, most notably starring in theDetective Knighttrilogy and his final film, the 2023 sci-fi action-thrillerAssassin.
