Bruce Willis’ wife admitted that before her husband was diagnosed with dementia, she was so confused and distressed about their marriage that she considered divorce.
Emma Heming Willis told Vanity Fair in an interview published Friday, Sept. 5 that her marriage to the legendary actor had taken a turn several years ago as Bruce’s behavior began to noticeably change.
“’What is going on? This is not the person that I married. Something is just so off.’ And I just couldn’t figure it out,” Emma said.
Eventually, Bruce Willis, 70. was diagnosed with aphasia and finally, in November 2022, frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
‘Like my marriage was crumbling’
Emma, 49, told Vanity Fair that she can’t remember exactly when the first signs that something was wrong appeared, but she knew that the man she was spending her days with was not the same as the one she fell in love with and married in 2009.
“I felt like my marriage was crumbling,” Emma explained, adding that she wondered if her husband had fallen out of love with her or was interested in someone else after more than a decade of marriage.
At one point, Emma said she considered filing for divorce.
A devastating diagnosis
In November 2022, Bruce and Emma finally got an answer as to what was troubling the legendary performer: FTD.
According to the Mayo Clinic, FTD is an umbrella term for a series of brain diseases affecting a person’s frontal and temporal lobes. How symptoms manifest depends on where the disease is located.
Some people experience changes to their behavior or personalities, while others experience issues with speech and language. Bruce’s aphasia was actually a symptom of his underlying FTD.
“His brain is failing him”
Emma Heming Willis
These days, Willis remains as active as he can be, but his dementia has affected him in other ways.
“Bruce is still very mobile,” Emma told ABC News in August. “Bruce is in really great health overall, you know. It’s just his brain that is failing him.”
“The language is going, and, you know, we’ve learned to adapt,” she continued. “And we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a … different way.”
A tough decision
Last month, Emma Heming Willis explained to ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she recently made the difficult choice to move her husband out of the family home and into a separate residence where he can get full-time care.
“Bruce would want that for our daughters,” she told Sawyer. “He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”
While Emma has taken on a healthy share of criticism for her decision, she said on Good Morning America Monday that she’s confident it was the right one for her entire family, including her and Bruce’s daughters, 13-year-old Mabel and 11-year-old Evelyn.
“It was a hard decision for us but that was the safest and best decision, not just for Bruce but also for our two young girls,” Emma said Good Morning America. “It’s really not up for debate.”
