Six months after Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, it is “hard to know” whether the actor, known for roles in Die Hard and Pulp Fiction, is aware of the extent to which his condition has worsened, his wife has revealed in a new interview.
Emma Heming Willis also told Today’s Hoda Kotb in an interview broadcast on Monday that she has been a “care partner” to her husband since the moment of the diagnosis.
She described the 68-year-old actor as the “gift that keeps on giving” who has taught his family “love, patience and resilience” in the midst of their grief.
Heming Willis spoke as she continues to advocate for people living with the condition known as FTD, whose symptoms include emotional problems, trouble communicating, struggles with walking and difficulty working, according to the National Institute on Aging.
Bruce Willis first stepped away from acting in March of last year after his family publicly revealed he was dealing with aphasia, a neurological condition that impairs people’s language processing, including their ability to read and write. Earlier this year, in February, Willis’s family announced that his condition had evolved into FTD.
Since then, coming to terms with her husband’s condition has been a “blessing and a curse” for Heming Willis, she told Kotb in Monday’s interview.
Frontotemporal dementia can often be misdiagnosed, and “to finally understand what was happening so that I could be into the acceptance of what is – it doesn’t make it any less painful, but … just being in the know of what is happening to Bruce makes it a little easier,” Heming Willis said.
FTD differs from Alzheimer’s in that it affects a different area of the brain. Susan Dickenson, the chief executive officer of the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, said on Today that the disorder can manifest in “unexplained changes in how a person is in the world”.
Dickenson added: “Somebody who normally speaks absolutely fine has trouble putting their thoughts into meaningful sentences, or they may lose the meaning of a specific word.”
Heming Willis spoke to Kotb at the start of World Frontotemporal Dementia Awareness Week. She and her husband married in 2009 and have two daughters together.
“Dementia is hard. It’s hard on the person diagnosed – it’s also hard on the family,” Heming Willis said. “And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say this is a family disease, it really is.”
