Emma Heming Willis admitted it was difficult to make the decision to live separately from husband Bruce Willis amid his battle with frontotemporal dementia — but ultimately, she felt it was what was best for their kids.
In her new book, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, Heming Willis, 49, revealed how she told her daughters, Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, that Willis, 70, would be moving into a second home.
“‘We’ve come to a point in Daddy’s disease where the care he requires is changing. It has to be more tailored to his every need,’ I told them. ‘And you should be in a home that is more tailored to your needs now,’” Heming Willis wrote. “’Also, Daddy would want you to have playdates, sleepovers, and more freedom than you’ve been able to have here. That would make him so happy.’”.
Heming Willis assured the girls that it would be their “second home,” full of some of their possessions. She described her husband’s new accommodations as “a place they’d keep personal things like toys, arts and crafts supplies, bathing suits, pj’s, and games, and that we could go stay with him anytime they wanted.”
Heming Willis acknowledged how “painful” the decision was to make, but she’s sure it’s what her husband would want.
“Even though they’d lived with his disease for so long that they understood, and even though this decision ensures Bruce’s overall well-being and safety and allows our young children to thrive, it was an uncertain and painful time for us,” she explained. “In fact, it’s still painful for me. After all, this is my husband, and having him in another home was not part of the future we’d mapped out together. You really can’t dream this stuff up.”
Heming Willis first revealed that Willis was moved into a second home near the family’s primary residence to receive round-the-clock care from a care team during Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey – A Diane Sawyer Special on August 26. (Willis’ family publicly shared his FTD diagnosis in February 2023, one year after he was diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder.)
“It was one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make so far,” she said during the special. “But I knew, first and foremost, Bruce would want that for our daughters. You know, he would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”
Host Diane Sawyer went to visit Willis at the second home without cameras around “to honor all of those memories over all those years.” She brought a producer that Willis “always loved” along with her.
“As we walked up, he seemed happy and, as Emma said, walking, healthy,” she recalled. “We sat on a sofa outside, and at one point, without words, he took my hand. I talked about the old days and saw flashes of that irrepressible smile.”
The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path is out now.
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