Bruce Willis‘ personality has changed amid his dementia battle.
Gentler Man
The Die Hard star has turned from a “macho” man to a gentler person since his aphasia diagnosis in March 2022, before it turned into frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2023, his and 63-year-old ex-wife, actress Demi Moore’s daughter, Rumer, says.
FTD is a term for a group of brain diseases that affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, and it causes significant changes in personality, behavior, and language, rather than memory loss.
Appearing on the latest episode of 38-year-old internet personality Maeve Reilly’s The Inside Edit podcast, Rumer, 37, said, “I’m so grateful I get to go see him. Even though it’s different now, I’m so grateful.”
“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.”
FTD Diagnosis
FTD is one of the rarest forms of the neurological disease, and the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood actress noted that she did not realize how “prevalent” it was.
Rumer said, “It’s wild to me. So many people come up to me now, and they say, ‘My uncle had FTD. My dad had this.'”
Last November, the star, who has a daughter named Louetta with her ex-partner, musician Derek Richard Thomas, heartbreakingly revealed that Bruce, 71, sometimes does not recognize her.
Spending Time with Willis
In a video posted to Instagram, Rumer shared, “The truth is that anybody with FTD is not doing great. But he’s doing OK in terms of somebody who’s dealing with frontotemporal dementia, you know what I mean?”
“The only way I feel like I could answer that in a way that’s like he’s doing great… How do I say this? It’s like those parameters don’t really work anymore in my mind, so this is an interesting question.”
“I’m so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him. I’m so grateful that when I go over there, and I 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.”
“That I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I’m giving. So that feels really nice.”
“I just feel grateful that I get to go over there with Louetta and we get to spend time with him, and I get to feel the love that he has for me, and that I can love him and be with him.”