Bruce Willis’ wife provides heartbreaking health update
Emma Heming Willis, the wife of legendary actor Bruce Willis, has given a heartbreaking update on her husband’s health and shared details about the challenges she and her family face daily looking after the cinema icon.
In a video shared on July 14th, Heming Willis said that she had been spending time with her husband and their two daughters, Mabel and Evelyn, in the mountains. However, she also admitted that she was “not good”, even though the actor’s fans were providing “uplifting moments”.
“Your pictures are making me so happy,” she told Willis’ fans before admitting that moments like that helped her overcome the oppressive nature of the “doom and gloom” thoughts that come in so often.
Willis’ wife also referred to the fact that it looks like she’s out having fun rather than looking after her husband, saying: “I know it looks like I’m out living my best life. I do that for myself; I do that for our two children and Bruce, who would not want me to live any other way.”
“I’m not good,” Emma added. “But I have to put my best foot forward for the sake of myself and my family. When we are not looking after ourselves, we cannot look after anyone that we love.”
Accompanying the video was a caption that read: “I don’t have this down to a fine science either, but I try. It’s an affirmation I use daily, so it’s kept at the forefront of my mind. I ask that you’ll consider to keep looking for that one beautiful thing or moment in your day.”
Bruce Willis’ health issues
Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with aphasia and dementia, which has affected the actor’s speech and movement, bringing him into early retirement. The family has found his transition to being cared for incredibly difficult.
His daughter Tallulah recently said of Willis’ condition: “My family announced in early 2022 that Bruce Willis was suffering from aphasia, a brain-mediated inability to speak or to understand speech, and we learned earlier this year that that symptom was a feature of frontotemporal dementia, a progressive neurological disorder that chips away at his cognition and behaviour day by day.”
She continued: “It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears.’ Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally.”
Due to the nature of his illness, treatment isn’t simple. Earlier this year, his wife Emma confirmed “that options are slim” regarding dementia. The disease is life-threatening, and patients gradually deteriorate as time advances.
Dr Nicholas Milano specialises in dementia treatment at the Medical University of South Carolina and previously explained that life expectancy varies depending on how quickly a patient is diagnosed. He said regarding Willis to the MUSC: “While everyone is different, the average life expectancy of a patient diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia is nine years from the first symptom but five years from the first diagnosis. Because usually there’s a delay in diagnosis.”
Milano also stated there is no cure for frontotemporal dementia or way of slowing down its progression, adding: “Because it’s less common than Alzheimer’s disease, there probably hasn’t been as much research, and there haven’t been any treatments that have been shown to be beneficial.”
What was Bruce Willis’ final movie?
Given that Willis’ condition has forced him to retire, the actor’s final movie came in the disappointing Jesse Atlas project, Assassin.
Directed by Atlas, Assassin (Die Like Lovers in the US) explores the use of a futuristic microchip that enables agents to inhabit the bodies of other people, allowing them to carry out covert, frequently deadly missions while “somebody else takes the fall”. But when an agent is killed during a top-secret mission, it’s his grieving wife who sets out on the warpath.
The film sees Willis in his final role. The actor starred alongside Andy Allo, Dominic Purcell, Nomzamo Mbatha, Mustafa Shakir, Hannah Quinlivan, Fernanda Andrade and Eugenia Kuzmina.
Atlas said to Bleeding Cool of Willis’ condition following the film’s release: “It’s sad and heartbreaking that Andy, Nomzamo, Dominic [Purcell], Mustafa, Fernanda [Andrade], and I will not get a chance to sit down, watch the film with him, and have an opportunity to celebrate what we did, and that sucks. Rewinding the clock to when we started talking to his team and talking to him about the role, there was a lot that resonated with this role for him.”
The director added: “We had a great moment or two with Bruce Willis on set, and watching that guy slip in and out of character so seamlessly was terrific. I’m thankful that we got a chance to have him.”
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