Bruce Willis is continuing to do well, according to one of the latest updates on his health from his family since he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
His oldest daughter, Rumer Willis, 35, stopped by the TODAY show on Wednesday to discuss her upcoming residency at New York City’s Café Carlyle and shared an update on how her dad is doing.
“He’s so good,” the musician — who welcomed her first child, daughter Louetta, last year — told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb. “I actually got to see him right before I came out (to New York). And Lou is just starting to walk a little bit, and she was walking over to him, and it was so sweet.”
“It’s so nice because I feel like my dad is just like — he’s a girl dad, through and through,” she continued. “It almost unlocks that kind of little-kid, girl-dad thing. He’s so sweet with her.”
Rumer Willis also opened up about why she and her family have shared so much about Bruce Willis’ health and the progression of his dementia.
“Our vulnerability and transparency as a family about what he’s going through to me is so important because if it can have any impact on another family that is struggling in any way with something like this, or bring more attention to the disease in hopes of finding a cure or anything that can be of service to anybody else, I think is really important,” she said.
The Willis family announced in March 2022 that the “Die Hard” star would be stepping away from acting due to health issues. At the time, they shared that he had developed a disorder called aphasia, which leads to difficulties writing and speaking.
The following year, in February 2023, they confirmed that Bruce Willis’ condition had progressed and that they had a definitive diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, aka FTD, a degenerative disease that primarily affects communication and behavior, as opposed to memory, like other types of dementia.
Frontotemporal dementia is the most common type of dementia in people under 60. Here’s what to know about Bruce Willis’ health.
Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, 45, previously shared a glimpse of how he’s doing in March 2024, when she took to Instagram to slam headlines reporting incorrect information about his condition.
She started the clip by saying how claims that her husband had “no more joy” due to his condition “triggered” her.
“I can just tell you, that is far from the truth,” Heming Willis explained. “I need society and whoever’s writing these stupid headlines to stop scaring people. Stop scaring people to think that once they get a diagnosis of some kind of neurocognitive disease that that’s it, it’s over.”
“No, it is the complete opposite of that, OK? 100% there is grief and sadness, there is all of that. But you start a new chapter … filled with love … connection … joy … happiness. That’s where we are,” she added.
Two months prior, in January 2024, Bruce Willis’ ex-wife, Demi Moore, spoke to Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show, Radio Andy, about Bruce’s condition and caregiving.
“When you let go of who they’ve been, or who you think they (are), or who even you would like them to be, you can then really stay in the present and take in the joy and the love that is present and there for all that they are, not all that they’re not,” she said.
Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which includes a variety of neurodegenerative conditions, his family announced in February 2023. FTD impacts the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Its onset begins earlier than other degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and symptoms start on average around age 58, according the Cleveland Clinic. Unlike other forms of dementia, memory difficulties aren’t the hallmark symptom of FTD.
Primary progressive aphasia is a type of FTD, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Aphasia can also be caused by a stroke, and in these cases the loss of ability to speak is usually sudden. But with progressive aphasia, as Bruce Willis likely has, it usually starts out mild and gets worse as time passes, Barmada said.
Other common symptoms of FTD include apathy or unwillingness to talk, changes in personality and becoming more depressed, lack of social skills and obsessive behavior.
“It doesn’t look like a dementia or something that you can put your finger on. … Very often you’ll hear people say they just started to act really weird, and they’re not the same person,” Barmada said.
What is the life expectancy of someone with frontotemporal dementia?
The average life expectancy for someone with frontotemporal dementia, which Bruce Willis has, is seven to 13 years after diagnosis, per the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. Cleveland Clinic said the life expectancy is seven and half years, while Barmada told TODAY.com that 10 years or longer is considered a good prognosis.
I’m sad to hear of his illness ,may the wind be at your back.