Bruce Willis found ways to keep acting as dementia took hold, wife's book reveals

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Before he was given an official diagnosis that he had been stricken with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Bruce Willis had an inkling that something might be wrong but found ways to keep working.

After an acting career that stretched back more than 40 years, Willis’ family announced he was retiring following his diagnosis with aphasia in March 2022.

The following year, his loved ones revealed that he was suffering from a type of dementia known as frontotemporal dementia. 

“FTD is a cruel disease that many of us have never heard of and can strike anyone,” the Moonlighting star’s family wrote in a statement on the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration website at the time.

The Die Hard star’s wife, Emma Heming Willi,s will detail his family’s ordeal in a new book, The Unexpected Journey, which will be released this September.

According to Australia’s News.com.au, Emma, who shares daughters Mabel Ray Willis, 13, and Evelyn Penn Willis, 11, with the actor, reveals that Willis, 70, continued to work at a breakneck pace in 2020 and 2021 by having directors slash his onscreen dialogue and hiring a friend to read him his lines through an earpiece.

“Before making his condition public, Willis had found ways to soldier on with his acting, having directors scale down his dialogue and getting a trusted friend to feed him his lines through an earpiece on films such as Assassin and the Detective Knight series,” the Australian news site claims.

“Willis always had a slow speech pattern – so his inner circle wasn’t overly concerned when he began stumbling over his words a little more than usual,” the website reports.

In 2022, shortly after his family confirmed he was stepping away from his acting career, the Los Angeles Times recounted an incident on the set of his 2020 action thriller Hard Kill in which he reportedly discharged a firearm loaded with a blank on the wrong cue.

In the years leading up to his retirement, Willis churned out dozens of low-budget action films, often earning $2 million for two days’ work, documents reviewed by the Times revealed. His contract reportedly limited his work to no more than eight hours a day, but oftentimes he wrapped up his work in half that time.

Emma said she wrote the book to help families going through similar struggles.

“I really wrote the book that I wish someone had handed me the day we got our diagnosis with no hope, no direction … not much,” the 46-year-old former model shared on Instagram when she announced the book back in April. “Today, life looks different for me and our family.”

Speaking at the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement Forum last month, Heming Willis recounted how the future the two of them had dreamed of together “vanished” when her husband’s diagnosis was confirmed.

“On the day Bruce got his diagnosis, we left the doctor’s office with a pamphlet and a hollow goodbye. No plan, no guidance, no hope, just shock,” she said, according to PEOPLE.

“The future we imagined simply vanished, and I was left trying to hold my family together, raise our two young daughters, and care for the man I love while navigating a disease I barely understood.”

Emma said she felt “lost, isolated and scared.”

“What I needed in that moment at that appointment wasn’t just medical information. I needed someone to look me in the eye and say, ‘This feels impossible right now, but you will find your footing. You will survive this and you will grow because of it,’” she told the audience.

In the wake of Willis’ illness, Emma has become a vocal advocate for raising awareness on dementia and families and caregivers struggling to cope with their new way of life.

“This is the book I trust will help the next caregiver. It is filled with support, insight and the hope needed to navigate this journey,” she said. 

Last December, Emma, who married Willis in 2009, admitted she allows herself some space to grieve her husband’s illness and how it has affected their lives. But she said that she only allows a short block of time to question the cruelty of the disease.

“I give myself 30 minutes to sit in the ‘why him, why us,’ to feel the anger and grief. Then I shake it off and return to what is. And what is… is unconditional love. I feel blessed to know it, and it’s because of him. I’d do it all over again and again in a heartbeat 💞,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

The Unexpected Journey will be released on Sept. 9.

mdaniell@postmedia.com