Bruce Willis‘ wife Emma Heming Willis has given a new update about her husband’s life with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Heming Willis appeared on the Monday morning episode of “Today” to bring awareness to the disease during World Frontotemporal Dementia Awareness week. Anchor Hoda Kotb spoke with her about how her family’s life has changed since the diagnosis.
“What I’m learning is that dementia is hard,” Emma said. “It’s hard on the person diagnosed. It’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say that this is a family disease, it really is.”
When Kotb asked Heming Willis “Does he know what’s going on? Is that something that he is aware of?”, she responded, “Hard to know. It’s hard to know.”
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Signs of FTD can include speech issues, difficulty with motor skills like walking and changes in behavior and personality. The frontal lobe of the brain, which is impacted by the disease, controls self-insight, which could speak to Willis’ difficulty in understanding the condition.
Heming Willis, who refers to herself as her husband’s “care-partner,” said that there is still plenty of joy in her family, despite the diagnosis.
“There’s so many beautiful things happening in our lives,” she said. “It’s just really important for me to look up from the grief and the sadness so that I can see what is happening around us. Bruce would really want us to be in the joy of what is. He would really want that for me and our family.”
Willis’ family announced his retirement from acting last year as a result of the diagnosis.
“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” their statement read. “As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”
Watch the full interview below.
