Bruce Willis’ wife says his ‘language is going’ as Die Hard actor’s brain ‘failing him’ in dementia battle

Heming Willis is her husband's carer, after it was revealed he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2022, and spoke about the 70-year-old star's condition during an interview on ABC News's Good Morning America show.

She said: "Bruce is still very mobile, Bruce is in really great health overall, it's just his brain that is failing him.

"The language is going and, you know, we've learned to adapt, and we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a different way."

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Willis retired from acting after initially being diagnosed with aphasia, a brain disorder that affects language and speech.

“For 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,” Heming Willis told ABC of her husband’s early symptoms.

“He 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.”

A year after his aphasia diagnosis, the award-winning actor got another diagnosis for frontotemporal dementia. “While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis,” Willis’s family said at the time in a joint statement with his daughters, his wife, and his ex-wife, Demi Moore.

When Heming Willis first learned of the diagnosis, “I was so panicked and I just remembered hearing it and not hearing anything else,” she said. “It was like I was freefalling.”

But the British-American model went on to say that she still has moments when she recognises her husband.

Heming Willis added: "We still get those days, not days, but we get moments.

"It's his laugh, right?

"Like he has such a hearty laugh, and sometimes you'll see that twinkle in his eye or that spark, and I just get transported, and it's just hard to see, because as quickly as those moments appear, then it goes, so it's hard, but I'm grateful, I'm grateful that my husband is still very much here."

Heming Willis, 47, has been open about her life caring for the Die Hard star, whom she has been married to for more than 15 years, and said he still lives a life of "love, connection, joy and happiness" in an Instagram post in March 2024.

It comes after Willis's ex-wife, Demi Moore, whom he has remained friends with since separating in 2000, said he was in a "very stable place at the moment" in an interview with US outlet CNN in December last year.

The NHS says FTD is an uncommon type of dementia that causes problems with behaviour and language, it says symptoms include personality changes, slow speech, problems with mental abilities, and memory problems.

Willis is best known for starring in films including Pulp Fiction, The Fifth Element and The Sixth Sense.