Emma Heming Willis corrects misconception about Bruce Willis’ dementia
by The Washington Times AI News Desk · The Washington TimesEmma Heming Willis is pushing back against a widespread misunderstanding about her husband’s illness, saying Bruce Willis still recognizes his family despite living with frontotemporal dementia.
Ms. Heming Willis, 47, appeared on Monday’s episode of “The Bossticks” podcast to explain the distinctions between frontotemporal dementia, known as FTD, and Alzheimer’s disease. The actor, 71, was first diagnosed with aphasia in 2022 before his family disclosed a more specific diagnosis of FTD in 2023.
“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,” Ms. Heming Willis said. “I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory loss.”
She explained that FTD, which affects the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, comes in three variants — one affecting language, one affecting behavior and one affecting movement. Mr. Willis has the language-affecting form of the disease. Ms. Heming Willis noted that his form of FTD does not primarily affect memory and that he still recognizes her, their daughters Mabel, 14, and Evelyn, 12, and his three daughters from his marriage to Demi Moore — Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 32.
While Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia overall, Ms. Heming Willis said FTD is among the most common forms of dementia diagnosed in people under 60.
She described her role as caretaker in terms of ongoing grief.
“These diseases, they take, and they take and they take — sometimes very slowly — and you are grieving different losses all the time,” she said. “So you are consistently in grief.”
Ms. Heming Willis told the Spanish newspaper El País in a Sunday interview that the family chose openness over secrecy from the beginning.
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“I wanted our two young children not to have to think that they have to talk about their dad’s disease in a hushed home like this was some dark family secret,” she said.
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