Tallulah Willis, daughter of Hollywood star Bruce Willis, has opened up about her father’s dementia diagnosis and its impact on their family. In an essay for Vogue Magazine, Willis described how she knew “something was wrong for a long time” before the family announced her father was suffering from aphasia, a condition affecting the brain that causes speech and language difficulties – leading to his retirement. She later learned that aphasia was a feature of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) – which “chips away at his cognition and behaviour day by day”. Bruce Willis was diagnosed with the progressive neurological disorder in February this year.
Willis revealed that she met her father’s decline in recent years with a “share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of” – due to various health issues including anorexia nervosa, depression, and being diagnosed with ADHD, which led to rapid weight loss and body dysmorphia. The actor was “quietly struggling” during her own health battles. Last spring, Willis saw her weight drop to about 84 pounds. Willis admitted that she now has hopes for her father and is reluctant to let go of them.
The 29-year-old shared that her father still recognises her and “lights up” when she enters the room. She wrote, “He still knows who I am and lights up when I enter the room. He may always know who I am, give or take the occasional bad day. One difference between FTD and Alzheimer’s dementia is that, at least early in the disease, the former is characterised by language and motor deficits, while the latter features more memory loss.”
In the essay, Willis recalled a moment when her father’s condition hit her. She was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha’s Vineyard when the bride’s father made a moving speech. “Suddenly I realised that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”
Willis is now focused on her recovery and her relationship with her father, whose mobility has not been affected by his condition. She is trying to build a record of memories of him and is always taking photos of whatever she sees when she goes to visit. She revealed, “I have every voicemail from him saved on a hard drive. These days, my dad can be reliably found on the first floor of the house, somewhere in the big open plan of the kitchen-dining-living room, or in his office.”
The essay was published days after the actor’s wife, Emma Hemming-Willis, with whom he has two daughters, Mabel, 10, and Evelyn, eight, spoke poignantly about how their time together was precious. The model-wife also described the “toll” on her mental health.
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore share three daughters – Rumer, Tallulah, and Scout. Last month, the actor and Moore became grandparents after Rumer announced the birth of her first child, Louetta Isley Thomas Willis.
