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Emma Heming Willis opened up to Diane Sawyer about her “way of communicating with” husband Bruce Willis after his frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis
Despite the challenges Bruce’s diagnosis has posed, “I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here,” she noted
The ABC special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+
Emma Heming Willis is grateful to still see flashes of husband Bruce Willis’ charismatic personality.
But as a result of his frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis, “The language is going, and we’ve learned to adapt,” she explained in a wide-ranging, emotional conversation with Diane Sawyer, which aired in full on ABC News Tuesday, Aug. 26.
“We have a way of communicating with him, which is just a different way,” added the author, activist and former model, 47.
Back in March 2022, the Willis family announced that Bruce had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate, and that he was retiring from acting. Emma then revealed her husband’s FTD diagnosis just under a year later.
Despite the challenges Bruce’s diagnosis has posed, “I’m grateful,” Emma told Sawyer, 79. “I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here.”
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That includes “moments” where Emma still sees the “twinkle in his eye,” his “hardy laugh” and his signature “smirk” — poignant parts of the actor’s personality that make her feel “transported” in time.
“And it’s just hard to see, because as quickly as those moments appear, then it goes. It’s hard,” said Emma, who shares two daughters with her husband of 16 years: Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11.
When his family — which also includes ex-wife Demi Moore and their daughters Rumer Willis, 37, Scout Willis, 34, and Tallulah Willis, 31 — are around him, Bruce “lights up,” according to his wife.
“He’s holding our hands. We’re kissing him. We’re hugging him. He is reciprocating,” Emma said. “That’s all I need, you know? I don’t need him to know that I am his wife, and we were married on this day … I just wanna feel that I have a connection with him. And I do.”
Maria Shriver’s The Open Field
Cover of The Unexpected Journey by Emma Heming Willis (2025)
That doesn’t mean that it was easy to figure out how that connection would persist. As she recalled in the interview of the Die Hard actor’s diagnosis, “I didn’t understand what was happening.”
“I just thought, like, ‘How can I remain in a marriage that doesn’t feel like what we had — that doesn’t feel like a marriage anymore?’ ” Emma said. “It just got very bumpy and very confusing.”
Addressing why she is opening up about her family’s experience in interviews and her forthcoming book The Unexpected Journey, Emma told Sawyer that her “whole motivation” is “to raise awareness about” caregiving and FTD.
“We want people to be able to be diagnosed earlier, when they can participate in these [clinical] trials,” she added.
Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Read the original article on People
