Why Bruce Willis Lives Separate From His Family Amid Dementia Battle
- - Why Bruce Willis Lives Separate From His Family Amid Dementia Battle
Katherine SchaffstallAugust 27, 2025 at 4:40 AM
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Bruce Willis may have the support of his family amid his health battle with dementia, though it was revealed that the Die Hard actor isn't living at home with his loved ones.
“It was one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make so far,” Willis' wife, Emma Heming Willis, said about his living arrangement during ABC's Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey – A Diane Sawyer Special on Tuesday, August 26. “But I knew, first and foremost, Bruce would want that for our daughters. You know, he would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”
Willis, 70, currently lives full-time in a one-story house with his care team, which is near the house that Heming Willis, 47, lives in with their daughters Mabel Ray Willis, 13, and Evelyn Penn Willis, 11. However, Heming Willis insisted that she and their daughters spend “a lot” of time at Willis' main residence for breakfast and dinner visits.
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The Paradise City actor was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022. Aphasia is a brain disorder "that affects how you communicate," according to The Mayo Clinic. "It can impact your speech, as well as the way you write and understand both spoken and written language."
Nearly one year later, his family revealed that his condition progressed to frontotemporal dementia. The condition is "an umbrella term for a group of brain diseases that mainly affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain," per The Mayo Clinic. "These areas of the brain are associated with personality, behavior and language."
Also during the special, Heming Willis recalled when she first started to notice that her husband's health was declining.
“For someone who is very talkative and very engaged, he was just a little more quiet. And when the family would get together, he would kind of just melt a little bit,” she told Diane Sawyer. “It felt a little removed, very cold, not like Bruce, who was very warm and affectionate."
She continued, “To go in the complete opposite of that was alarming and scary.”
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 27, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL AOL Entertainment”
