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Bruce Willis’ wife Emma Heming Willis shares update on actor's health, her advocacy for caregivers
ABC News ^ | August 26, 2025 | Tess Scott Davidson & Katie kindelan

Posted on 08/26/2025 1:43:05 PM PDT by Twotone

Amid Bruce Willis' nearly three-year battle with dementia, the actor's brain is "failing him," and his ability to communicate is fading, according to his wife Emma Heming Willis.

"Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know," Heming Willis told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in the ABC special "Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey," a preview of which aired Tuesday on "Good Morning America." "It's just his brain that is failing him."

Willis' family shared publicly in 2023 that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a type of dementia that impacts one's personality and may cause behavioral changes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For the 70-year-old actor, famous for delivering one-liners in movies, the primary symptom is the loss of language, according to Heming Willis, who has written a new book about her family's experience, "The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path."

"The language is going, and, you know, we've learned to adapt," she said. "And we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a ... different way."

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: brucewillis; dementia
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To: Tell It Right

I couldn’t find the one where he signed “Yippee ki yay” M. Fkers on a Chinook. But here are a few of him and my unit and Platoon Sgt.
https://imgur.com/a/uBNe9oX


21 posted on 08/26/2025 3:00:28 PM PDT by Pocketdoor
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To: Twotone
I'm currently generally experiencing the same situation, with my wife in the early-/mid-stage of dementia. We can be sitting quietly, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she'll make some statement to me (according to her, in response to a question or statement that I never made). She's having trouble speaking in complete sentences or forgetting what she just said.

The last time we went shopping at Walmart, she was in her mobility chair and separated from me to go look around the store and became so disoriented that she couldn't find her way back. Eventually, one of the employees there noticed her sitting there and took her to the customer service section where they paged me (because, luckily, the ID tag that I made for the mobility chair on the last time we were on a cruise to England was still attached to the chair and showed my name). So, in the future, if she comes to the store with me, she'll have to remain with me and not cruise around the store as she always had in the past.

The hardest part, for me, is have to constantly remind her how to do simple things, like clean herself after urinating, taking her pills, and things that she does multiple times per day.

22 posted on 08/26/2025 3:00:35 PM PDT by BlueLancer (Orchides Forum Trahite - Cordes Et Mentes Veniant)
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To: Pocketdoor
Bruce Willis visiting troops.





23 posted on 08/26/2025 3:04:31 PM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: BlueLancer

I know a few people dealing with this now. So tragic. A truly awful disease.


24 posted on 08/26/2025 3:06:34 PM PDT by Twotone ( What's the difference between a politician & a flying pig? The letter "F.")
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To: Tell It Right

Thanks!


25 posted on 08/26/2025 3:14:53 PM PDT by Pocketdoor
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To: Twotone

Horrible


26 posted on 08/26/2025 3:33:11 PM PDT by VTenigma (Conspiracy theory is the new "spoiler alert")
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To: rlmorel

“It’s a Chopper baby”.....”Zed is dead”


27 posted on 08/26/2025 4:28:41 PM PDT by redshawk ( I want my red balloon. https://youtu.be/VexKSRKoWQY)
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To: Pocketdoor

Thanks for sharing the pics.
Looks like everyone has having a great time.
Never knew Bruce was so giving.
I pray for him and his family.
God Bless.
redshawk.


28 posted on 08/26/2025 4:34:59 PM PDT by redshawk ( I want my red balloon. https://youtu.be/VexKSRKoWQY)
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To: Twotone

Worked with him as a “featured extra” for 3 long days on DIE HARD 2 in 1990. On the last day, I was hanging out at Video Village to get a peek of the monitors for some of the takes. Not pushing my luck, I decided to get back to the actors’ corral, so I head down a thin path in the deep snow by the airport terminal. A tall dude in dirty clothes walked toward me and it was Willis. He stopped and stared at me with an intimidating look. I knew to step out of the path, into the snow, and let him pass. It wasn’t until later that I realized he stayed in character the entire shoot... So my encounter was actually with “John Mclane”. Somewhat surreal.


29 posted on 08/26/2025 4:38:24 PM PDT by LittleBillyInfidel (This tagline has been formatted to fit the screen. Some content has been edited.)
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To: LittleBillyInfidel

One of my lieutenants was an extra on that shoot.

CC


30 posted on 08/26/2025 4:55:29 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (*This is a test of the emergency tagline system. This is only a test*)
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To: Celtic Conservative

Cool! Was he on the Denver shoot?


31 posted on 08/26/2025 5:10:24 PM PDT by LittleBillyInfidel (This tagline has been formatted to fit the screen. Some content has been edited.)
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To: redshawk
I know Quentin Tarantino is a total leftist dumbass douchebag, but I do enjoy his movies! I absolutely loved "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"!


32 posted on 08/26/2025 5:23:24 PM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est.)
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To: Twotone

I loved him in Moonlighting.

And he scared the crap out of me in one episode of Miami Vice. Just one episode decades ago is unforgettable (to me).

It’s so sad this is happening to him; he’s one of the good guys.


33 posted on 08/26/2025 5:28:36 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam (It's hard not to celebrate the fall of bad people. - Bongino)
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To: Pocketdoor

The 4th pic of him is so good!


34 posted on 08/26/2025 5:31:53 PM PDT by MayflowerMadam (It's hard not to celebrate the fall of bad people. - Bongino)
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To: Twotone

Me too. I’ve been a fan going back to Moonlighting.


35 posted on 08/26/2025 5:35:52 PM PDT by unlearner (I'm tired of being not tired of winning.)
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To: LittleBillyInfidel

No, Michigan Upper peninsula shoot. If I recall it was a mild winter and they were chasing locations that still had snow.

CC


36 posted on 08/26/2025 5:37:26 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (*This is a test of the emergency tagline system. This is only a test*)
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To: BlueLancer

You have my most profound empathy. My mom is reaching end stage dementia and it’s horrible.

L


37 posted on 08/26/2025 5:51:28 PM PDT by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Twotone

Prayers up ... I’ve read that good progress is being made with treatment improvements for this horrific disease with Ivermectin and FenBen.

Prayers for Bruce and his family.


38 posted on 08/26/2025 5:54:55 PM PDT by Jane Long (Jesus is Lord!)
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To: Twotone

She says a word supporting caregivers.

You ever been a caregiver for a terminal loved one? It’s every kind of weary,to the bone.


39 posted on 08/26/2025 6:12:52 PM PDT by lurk (u)
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To: MayflowerMadam

Yep... He had a great smile. I’m sure the pilots said “We might die right now.” Crazy times.


40 posted on 08/26/2025 6:38:19 PM PDT by Pocketdoor
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