Bruce Willis’ wife has revealed there are moments when the actor’s true self will break through amid his battle with frontotemporal dementia.
The Die Hard star, 70, was diagnosed with the degenerative brain condition in 2023.
‘We get moments,’ Emma Heming Willis, 47, told Diane Sawyer in a preview for the special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey airing Tuesday night on ABC.
‘It’s his laugh, right? Like, he has such a hearty laugh and you know, sometimes you’ll see that twinkle in his eye or that smirk and I just get like transported,’ she smiled.
Pausing for a moment, she became tearful, adding, ‘And it’s just hard to see because as quickly as those moments appear, (snaps fingers) it goes. That’s hard.’
Bruce Willis’ wife has revealed there are moments when the actor’s true self will break through amid his battle with frontotemporal dementia; pictured in New York City in April 2017
‘And it’s just hard to see because as quickly as those moments appear, (snaps fingers) it goes. That’s hard,’ a tearful Emma told Diane Sawyer in a preview for the special Emma & Bruce Willis: An Unexpected Journey set to air on ABC Tuesday night
Sawyer, 70, shared the preview Tuesday on Good Morning America. In the clip, it was revealed some 50,000 people in the US are suffering from the same very difficult to diagnose condition.
The Willises saw many doctors before finding out why the formerly gregarious and engaged husband and father had become withdrawn from his family.
‘He felt a little removed, very cold, not like Bruce, who is very warm and affectionate, to going the complete opposite of that was alarming and scary,’ she said.
Emma shares daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11 with the Moonlighting star.
Bruce shares his adult daughters, Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 31, with ex-wife Demi Moore, 62.
When a brain scan confirmed the FTD diagnosis, Emma said, ‘I was so panicked,’ hearing the diagnosis she ‘couldn’t pronounce’ for the first time.
‘I remember hearing it and just not hearing anything else. It was like I was freefalling.’
‘We get moments,’ Emma Heming Willis, 47, told Diane Sawyer in a preview for the special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey airing Tuesday night on ABC
‘It’s his laugh, right? Like, he has such a hearty laugh and you know, sometimes you’ll see that twinkle in his eye or that smirk and I just get like transported,’ she said; (Willis is seen here with adult daughters Rumer, Scout and Tallulah and ex-wife Demi Moore)
Since her husband’s diagnosis, Emma has learned a lot about taking care of a person with FTD; Pictured in New York City in October 2024
She is sharing her new found knowledge and her own experience navigating her new life in a book to be released September 9
‘But I’m grateful,’ she said, ‘I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here’
When asked if she thought the Pulp Fiction star understood what was happening, Emma said, ‘I don’t think Bruce connected the dots.’
The former model has transitioned into a fulltime caretaker for her husband and has written a book about her experience.
The Unexpected Journey will be released on September 9.
Of her husband’s current condition, she said, Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know. It’s just his brain that is failing him.’
As The Sixth Sense star looses his ability to speak, Emma said the family has ‘learned to adapt.’
‘We have a way of communicating with him that is just a different, a different way,’ adding, ‘But I’m grateful. I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here.’
