Rumer Willis is reflecting on her relationship with dad Bruce Willis amid his battle with frontotemporal dementia.
“Today is hard, I feel a deep ache in my chest to talk to you and tell you everything I’m doing and what’s going on in my life,” Rumer, 36, wrote via Instagram on Sunday, June 15, in honor of Father’s Day. “To hug you and ask you about life and your stories and struggles and successes. I wish I asked you more questions while you could still tell me about it all.”
She continued, “But I know you wouldn’t want me to be sad today so I’ll try to just be grateful reminding myself how lucky I am that you’re my dad and that you’re still with me and I can still hold you and hug you and kiss your cheek and rub your head I can tell you stories.”
Rumer noted that she and watch her dad’s “eyes light up” when he sees her daughter, Louetta, and shared that she will be “grateful for every moment” she has with Bruce. (Rumer welcomed her daughter with ex Derek Richard Thomas in 2023.)
“I love you so much dad happy Father’s Day,” she concluded. “Sending love to all those who are in the boat with me or have lost their fathers, to the single moms who are the dads too, to my future baby daddy…❤️”
Alongside the message, Rumer shared a series of throwback snaps with Bruce through the years. In one black-and-white image, Rumer smiled for the camera as she threw her arms around Bruce’s neck.
Bruce shares Rumer and daughters Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 31, with ex-wife Demi Moore. After his split from the actress, Bruce moved on with Emma Heming Willis, with whom he tied the knot in 2009. The pair are parents to daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11.
The family shared in 2022 that Bruce had been diagnosed with aphasia, later revealing that he was battling frontotemporal dementia. Since his diagnosis became public, Bruce’s loved ones have been candid about how they are coping. Heming Willis, for her part, paid tribute to Bruce on Sunday.
“Happy Father’s Day to all the dads living with disability or disease, showing up in the ways they can and to the children who show up for them,” Heming Willis, 46, wrote via Instagram. “What Bruce teaches our girls goes far beyond words. Resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength in simply being present. This photo says so much. Love deepens. It adapts. It stays, even when everything else changes.”
Heming Willis shared a sweet photo of the couple’s youngest daughter, Evelyn, cuddling up to Bruce, whose face was not visible in the image.
“But to be fair to myself, these symbolic days stir up a lot. I’m profoundly sad today. I wish, with every cell in my body, that things could be different for him and lighter for our family,” Heming Willis wrote. “As they say in our FTD community, ‘It is what it is.’ And while that might sound dismissive, to me, it’s not. It grounds me. It helps me return to the acceptance of what is and not fight this every step of the way like I used to. Today, let’s celebrate the badass dads, those who are here, and those we carry with us 💙 Onward.”
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