Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, is shedding light on her husband’s frontotemporal dementia diagnosis.
“It’s called frontotemporal dementia. Or FTD for short. It affects the frontal lobe and the temporal lobes. This is executive decision, just your every day sort of functioning, language [and] compression. That’s in your temporal lobe. The variant, because there’s three different types of variants of FTD, the one that Bruce has affects language,” Heming, 47, explained on the Monday, June 15 episode of the “Bossticks” podcast. “But there’s another variant that will affect behavior and another one that could affect movement. So here’s three different variants to FTD.”
When asked if Willis’ diagnosis affects his memory, Heming replied, “No it doesn’t.”
“That’s a different part of the brain,” she continued. “So when people say, ‘Oh, does he remember who you are?’ Well, he does because he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, he has FTD. I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory loss.”
Willis’ family shared in March 2022 that he had been diagnosed with the language disorder aphasia. It was later shared that he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
Heming, who shares two children with Willis, explained that she can feel like she’s facing an “ambiguous loss” while being a caretaker to her husband. (Heming and Willis, who tied the knot in 2009, welcomed daughters Mabel and Evelyn in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Willis is also the dad of daughters Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 32, with ex-wife Demi Moore.)
“It’s grieving someone who is alive,” she said. “And that is what many people who are caregivers to someone with dementia experience, because your person is there physically but maybe not mentally or emotionally.”
Heming explained that all forms of dementia “take and they take and they take, sometimes very slowly and you are grieving different losses all the time.”
“You are consistently in grief. I’ve just learned how to navigate it,” she said. “Maybe I’m a little bit more used to it at this point than I was early on. But yeah, you are just sitting with it and moving alongside of it.”
Following Willis’ diagnosis, Heming announced that she launched the Emma & Bruce Willis Fund for Dementia Research and Caregiver Support. The fund is “dedicated to advancing understanding of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) by raising awareness, supporting promising scientific research and strengthening support for caregivers,” People reported in March.
“This journey has opened my eyes to the realities so many families face when a loved one is living with frontotemporal dementia,” Heming said while accepting an award at The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration’s Hope Rising Benefit at the time. “I believe deeply in the importance of supporting research while also showing up for the caregivers who carry so much every day.”
She continued, “Through this fund, my hope is to help deepen understanding of FTD and ensure families facing it feel seen, supported and less alone. Bruce has always led with generosity and heart, and I know he would be proud to see this effort helping families facing this disease.”
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