Bruce Willis’ daughter Rumer gives update on his dementia battle: ‘Sharing our experience brings hope’
“What’s been so incredible is my dad is so beloved, and that’s been so evident in the transparency with which we’ve been sharing,” the actor’s eldest daughter says.
Bruce Willis is keeping his head up.
The Die Hard star’s eldest daughter, Rumer Willis, offered an update on her dad’s health in the wake of his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis last year. “He’s great,” Rumer told Fox News on Wednesday. “Yeah, yeah, doing OK. Thank you so much for asking.”
Rumer, 35, thanked her father’s fans for their support as well. “Through this experience, what’s been so incredible is my dad is so beloved, and that’s been so evident in the transparency with which we’ve been sharing,” she said. “And I think if there’s any way sharing our experience brings hope — whatever comes forward as a family — that can have an effect and bring any sort of hope, comfort to someone else experiencing that, then to me, that’s… everything.”
Rumer also told Extra that her father, 69, is “wonderful” on Thursday. “He’s doing so good,” she said. “I got to go over and see him today, which was so lovely and so nice to see him with my daughter and just go over and give love.”
The Sixth Sense actor’s family announced that he was stepping away from acting in 2022 after being diagnosed with aphasia, a condition that affects language and communication. Eleven months later, the family stated that Willis’ condition had advanced to frontotemporal dementia.
The National Institute on Aging states that people with frontotemporal dementia can experience symptoms like “unusual behaviors, emotional problems, trouble communicating, difficulty with work, or difficulty with walking.”
Rumer also told Fox News about the valuable lessons she learned from her father and mother, Demi Moore. “I feel like what I learned from them was just by watching,” she said. “I feel like being on set, one of the biggest things I would say, just by proxy, you treat everyone with the same amount of respect, whether you’re in front of the camera, behind the camera, from the littlest job. Like, it doesn’t matter.”
