Iconic actor’s daughter shares emotional update on father’s dementia battle

The daughter of an iconic actor revealed more details about her father’s ongoing health this week.

Actress Rumer Willis provided a candid update about her father Bruce Willis’s ongoing battle with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), revealing that while he is not doing “great,” he is managing as well as possible, according to Entertainment Weekly.

“People always ask me [how he’s doing] and I think it’s kind of a hard one to answer because the truth is that anybody with FTD is not doing great,” Rumer Willis said during a Q&A with fans on her instagram, Entertainment Weekly reported.

She emphasized the emotional complexity of her father’s condition, sharing that despite the challenges, she remains grateful for moments of connection and love, noting that she can still feel “a spark of him” when they spend time together, according to InStyle.

“I’m so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him. I’m so grateful that when I go over there and give him a hug, whether he recognizes me or not, that he can feel the love I’ve given him, and I can feel it back from him,” she was reported as saying.

Bruce Willis was first diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, which progressed to a frontotemporal dementia diagnosis in February 2023, with his family being transparent about the challenges of the condition that currently has no treatment or cure, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The actor’s wife, Emma Heming Willis, took to Instagram on Father’s day this year to provide a health update on her husband.

“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,” she wrote in an Instagram post, which depicted Willis with his face obscured by a hat.


Heming Willis reflected on her husband’s updated diagnosis in the Father’s Day post, stating that “these symbolic days stir up a lot.”

“I’m profoundly sad today,” she wrote. “I wish, with every cell in my body, that things could be different for him and lighter for our family.”

But Heming Willis also used the post to share some uplifting messages, and spoke about her husband’s presence in the lives of their children; she and the actor share two daughters, in addition to his three daughters with actress Demi Moore — including Rumer.

Rumer Willis expressed in her post this week that she is particularly grateful to spend time with her father, especially watching him interact with her 2-year-old daughter Louetta, finding moments of joy and connection despite the challenging circumstances, according to Entertainment Weekly.