BRUCE WILLIS HIS HEARTBREAKING DIAGNOSIS

THE ACTOR’S FAMILY REVEALS HE’S SUFFERING FROM DEMENTIA—AND VOWS TO HELP HIM LIVE AS FULL A LIFE AS POSSIBLE’

- ERIC ANDERSSON

In the 11 months since Bruce Willis announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder affecting his cognitive abilities, his wife, Emma Heming Willis, has made sure to treasure every moment with the former action star. Nature walks with their daughters Mabel, 10, and Evelyn, 8, Frisbee tosses on a summer day and dance parties on the porch—these memories, she wrote on Instagram last year, have been “magic.”

These days, focusing on the positive is more important than ever to the Willis clan. In a Feb. 16 statement about the actor’s health, his family said that Bruce, 67, is suffering from a “cruel” disease. “Bruce’s condition has progressed, and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD),” they wrote in an Instagram post signed by Emma, Mabel, Evelyn, Willis’s ex-wife Demi Moore, and the former couple’s three adult daughters, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah.

Emma posted a photo of her "charming and funny" husband to Instagram on Oct. 16. 

“Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces.”