Bruce Willis’ Daughter Tallulah Knew "Something Was Wrong For A Long Time" Before His Dementia Diagnosis

Bruce Willis’ daughter sensed something was wrong with her father “for a long time” before his dementia diagnosis.

In an essay for Vogue. Tallulah Willis, the 29-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, spoke about noticing the early signs he was sick before his family publicly announced his illness in March 2022. 

She said: “I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time. It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up!’ Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears.

“Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally.”

Tallulah added she felt like her dad had “lost interest” in her after he had his two daughters, Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, eight, with his second wife, Emma Heming Willis, and that he was focusing too much on his new family.

She wrote: “Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty maths: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father…I admit that I have met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of.

“The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it," admitted Tallulah, who was struggling with an eating disorder as her father's condition worsened.

"For the last four years, I have suffered from anorexia nervosa, which I’ve been reluctant to talk about because, after getting sober at age 20, restricting food has felt like the last vice that I got to hold on to… by the spring of 2022, I weighed about 84 pounds.

“I was always freezing. I was calling mobile IV teams to come to my house, and I couldn’t walk in my Los Angeles neighbourhood because I was afraid of not having a place to sit down and catch my breath.”

She insisted she can now bring “an energy that’s bright and sunny” to Bruce and “savour” time with him.

“Every time I go to my dad’s house, I take tons of photos searching for treasure in stuff that I never used to pay much attention to,” she wrote. “I have every voicemail from him saved on a hard drive. I find that I’m trying to document, to build a record for the day when he isn’t there to remind me of him and of us. He still knows who I am and lights up when I enter the room.”

“And now that I’m feeling better I ask myself, ‘How I can make him more comfortable?’” she added. “It feels like a unique and special time in my family, and I’m just so glad to be here for it.”

Tallulah added: “I know that trials are looming, that this is the beginning of grief, but that whole thing about loving yourself before you can love somebody else — it’s real.”

Bruce’s family announced he had frontotemporal dementia, known as FTD, in a statement signed by Emma Heming Willis, Demi Moore, and his five daughters, who also include Rumer, 34, and Scout, 31.

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

“While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.

“Today there are no treatments for the disease, a reality that we hope can change in the years ahead. As Bruce’s condition advances, we hope that any media attention can be focused on shining a light on this disease that needs far more awareness and research.” — BANG SHOWBIZ

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos

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