Bruce Willis’ eldest daughter, Rumer Willis, got candid about how the Die Hard star’s personality had shifted in the wake of his frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis, which he received in 2023. The disease typically brings major behavioral, physical and communicative changes to the patient, including loss of empathy, slow speech, poor coordination and muscle stiffness.
Bruce’s family, including his wife and five daughters, quickly rallied around him after he received the devastating news. “I’m so grateful I get to go see him,” Rumer shared on The Inside Edit on Monday.
“Even though it’s different now, I’m so grateful,” she continued. “There’s a sweetness. He’s always been this kind of macho dude, and there’s like a – fragile is not the right word, but – just a tenderness that maybe being Bruce Willis might not have allowed him in a certain way.”
The 37-year-old added that she had “no idea” how “prevalent” FTD was until she learned of Bruce’s diagnosis.
“It’s wild to me,” she said. “So many people come up to me now, and they say, ‘My uncle had FTD. My dad had this.'” According to the AFTD, the disease affects between 50,000 and 60,000 people in the US, and is the most common form of dementia for people under 60.
Rumer previously shared an update on her father’s health back in November, revealing that he was different but still had a “spark” in him. “The truth is that anybody with FTD is not doing great,” she admitted in an Instagram Q&A. “But he’s doing okay in terms of somebody who’s dealing with frontotemporal dementia, you know what I mean?”
© Getty Images“I’m so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him,” she continued. “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.”
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“That I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I’m giving, and so that feels really nice.” Bruce’s wife, Emma Heming, previously shared how his symptoms came on slowly and quietly, and his personality changes led to a difficult time for the couple, who share daughters Maeve, 14, and Evelyn, 12.
“As his language started changing, it (seemed like it) was just a part of a stutter, it was just Bruce. Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young,” she told Town & Country.
© Getty ImagesBruce’s third daughter, Tallulah Willis, whom he shares with his ex-wife, Demi Moore, told Vogue that she first realized something was wrong when her dad exhibited a “vague unresponsiveness” towards her.
© Instagram“He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth,” she said.
Bruce now lives in a house near his wife and two youngest daughters, where he can receive around-the-clock care, yet his family visit him daily, as Emma explained in 2025.
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