{"id":100964,"date":"2025-08-27T14:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T14:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/100964\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T14:16:06","slug":"bruce-willis-dementia-diagnosis-language-is-going-says-actors-wife-bruce-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/100964\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Willis\u2019 dementia diagnosis: \u2018language is going\u2019, says actor\u2019s wife | Bruce Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Willis\u2019s brain is \u201cfailing him\u201d and his \u201clanguage is going\u201d, his wife, Emma Heming Willis, has revealed, more than two years since the actor was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.<\/p>\n

\u201cBruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know,\u201d Heming Willis told Diane Sawyer in an ABC special on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s just his brain that is failing him. The language is going. We\u2019ve learned to adapt and we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2022, Willis\u2019s family announced that the Die Hard and Sixth Sense movie star would be retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia<\/a> \u2013 a brain disorder that leads to difficulty with language or speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor someone who was very talkative and very engaged, he was just a little more quiet and, when the family would get together, he would just melt a little bit,\u201d Heming Willis told ABC of her husband\u2019s early symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe felt a little removed, a little cold, not like Bruce who was very warm and very affectionate. To go the complete opposite of that was alarming and scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year after his aphasia diagnosis, Willis received another diagnosis for frontotemporal dementia<\/a>. \u201cWhile this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis,\u201d Willis\u2019s family said at the time in a joint statement including his daughters, his wife, and his ex-wife, Demi Moore.<\/p>\n

When Heming Willis first learned of the diagnosis, \u201cI was so panicked and I just remembering hearing it and not hearing anything else,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was like I was freefalling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heming Willis said there are still times where her husband \u2013 now 70 \u2013 reveals a \u201cspark\u201d of his buoyant personality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still get those days,\u201d she told Sawyer. \u201cNot days, but moments. It\u2019s his laugh. He has such a hearty laugh. And sometimes you\u2019ll get that twinkle in his eye or that spark. And I just get transported. It\u2019s just hard to see because as quickly as those moments appear, then it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heming Willis and Willis married in 2009 and have two daughters together. Her book<\/a> about caring for Willis \u2013 titled Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope and Yourself on the Caregiving Path \u2013 will be published on 9 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bruce Willis\u2019s brain is \u201cfailing him\u201d and his \u201clanguage is going\u201d, his wife, Emma Heming Willis, has revealed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-100964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}