{"id":620473,"date":"2026-09-10T15:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620473\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:04:11","slug":"bruce-willis-remains-very-present-amid-dementia-diagnosis-wife-says-in-health-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620473\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Willis remains \u2018very present\u2019 amid dementia diagnosis, wife says in health update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Willis is “very present” despite his dementia diagnosis<\/a>, his wife Emma Heming Willis has said.<\/p>\n

The 71-year-old Die Hard star was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2023<\/a>, after initially being diagnosed with aphasia the previous year. The progressive neurological condition<\/a> affects the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes and can cause changes in behavior, communication, speech and movement.<\/p>\n

Heming Willis, who married the actor in 2009, told the MS NOW<\/a> talk series Because We Care with Richard Lui that she and Willis continue to have “so many beautiful moments of joy and connection.”<\/p>\n

“I think that’s really important to share because I think there’s such a negative narrative around dementia,” Heming Willis said in a preview clip of the interview published by Entertainment Weekly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She continued: “We need to be careful and reframe that. When we think about that or don’t want to talk about dementia and put it in a corner, the person living with the disease and their caregiver aren’t seen, they aren’t supported.”<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/p>\n

Bruce Willis remains ‘very present’ amid dementia diagnosis, his wife Emma Heming Willis has said in a health update (Getty)<\/p>\n

Heming Willis says in the clip that she feels “it’s important to know that it’s hard and it’s a terrible disease, but we have so many moments of joy and connection that aren’t your norm, but it’s okay.”<\/p>\n

She said the family has “learned to adapt and show up for Bruce.”<\/p>\n

Last month, Willis made a rare public appearance at his daughter Tallulah’s wedding<\/a> in Idaho, where he was pictured with the bride while clasping hands with his new son-in-law, Justin Acee.<\/p>\n

Heming Willis has continued to share updates on the actor’s health and how it has affected their family since his 2023 diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\"Last<\/p>\n

Last year, Bruce Willis was moved out of the family home and into a one-storey accommodation with a full-time care team (Getty)<\/p>\n

In January, she said that the actor “doesn’t know” that he has the degenerative disease,<\/a> as one of the neurological symptoms includes anosognosia, which prevents a person from accurately recognising their own illness.<\/p>\n

“People think this might be denial, like they don’t want to go to the doctor because they’re like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Actually, this is the anosognosia that comes into play,” Heming Willis explained. “It’s not denial. It’s just that their brain is changing. This is a part of the disease.”<\/p>\n

In June, she said that he remembers key details about his life, including the identity of his family members around him.<\/p>\n

“When people say, ‘Oh, you know, does he remember who you are?’ Well, he does because he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s; he has FTD,” Emma said on an episode of The Bossticks podcast. “I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory.”<\/p>\n

Last year, Willis was moved into a one-storey home with a full-time care team.<\/p>\n

Heming Willis said at the time: “Bruce would want that for our daughters. He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”<\/p>\n

The couple has two daughters, Mabel, 14, and Evelyn, 12. Willis has three daughters with his ex-wife Demi Moore: Tallulah, 32, Rumer, 37 and Scout, 35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bruce Willis is “very present” despite his dementia diagnosis, his wife Emma Heming Willis has said. The 71-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[11247,321,2926,11248,93,26666,263404,61,60],"class_list":["post-620473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bruce-willis","tag-celebrities","tag-dementia","tag-emma-heming-willis","tag-entertainment","tag-frontotemporal-dementia","tag-heming-willis","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}