Demi Moore candidly revealed the heartbreak of watching her amicable ex-husband Bruce Willis suffer through his dementia decline.
As Willis stepped away from Hollywood due to his health issues, his blended family, including Moore and their daughters Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 31, offered their support around him.
His primary caregiver is his second wife Emma Heming, 47, with whom Bruce, 70, shares his two youngest daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11.
Heming has now opened up to Oprah Winfrey about the experience of caring for Willis, as described in her forthcoming memoir, The Unexpected Journey.
During their discussion, Winfrey shared a clip from a recent interview with Moore, 62, who provided her own perspective on the situation.
‘It’s difficult. It’s hard to witness someone who was once so vibrant, strong, and directed change into other aspects of themselves,’ Demi remarked on Oprah’s podcast.
Demi Moore openly expressed the sadness of seeing her amicable ex-husband, Bruce Willis, endure his battle with dementia; the pair is shown in a 2022 photo.
‘But you know, from my specific standpoint, I always emphasize the importance of meeting them where they are. Don’t expect them to be who they were or who you wish them to be, and when you approach it that way, I find there is an incredible sweetness and something soft, tender, and loving,’ she added.
‘And perhaps it is more playful and childlike in certain sense, because of how much more caretaking they need,’ the G.I. Jane actress acknowledged.
‘And really, the most important place for me is showing up and being present, just being present, because if you project where it’s going it only creates anxiety. If you replay where it was and what you’ve lost, it only creates anxiety and grief.’
She explained that ‘when you stay present, there is so much, and there’s still so much of him there. And it may not always be verbal, but it is beautiful given the givens.’
Willis’s illness, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) does not cause memory loss at first, but rather attacks the parts of the brain in charge of language and personality.
Heming recently revealed that the ‘hardest decision’ she took while looking after him was moving him into a separate one-story house away from their primary residence.
He lives there with a full-time care team, while Heming brings their daughters Mabel and Evelyn to visit him ‘a lot,’ including for breakfast and dinner.
‘Bruce would want that for our daughters,’ said Heming. ‘He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.’
Bruce and Demi are pictured during their marriage arriving at the premiere of her 1996 film Striptease, with Demi having already shaved her head for her lead role in G.I. Jane
‘It’s hard to see somebody who was so vibrant and strong and so directed shift into this other parts of themself,’ said Demi on Oprah’s podcast; she and Bruce are pictured in 2018
The couple made the revelation during a joint ABC special with Diane Sawyer entitled Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey.
Days after the broadcast aired, Heming posted to Instagram saying she had been criticized online for moving Bruce into a separate house.
She argued she had been judged ‘quickly and unfairly,’ saying viewers were split between ‘people with an opinion versus people with an actual experience.’
Meanwhile Moore showered praise on Heming during her new Oprah interview, saying; ‘There is no roadmap for how to deal with this and obviously, being the ex-wife, even though our family is very connected, is an interesting position, and so much fell on Emma to really figure this whole thing out.’
Plugging Heming’s memoir, Moore said that ‘the most beautiful thing – and she talks about this in the book – was recognizing the importance for caregivers that they have to take care of themselves, and that if they don’t put that time into making sure that they’re okay, then they can’t show up for anyone else.’
Moore added that ‘I have so much compassion for Emma in this, being a young woman, there’s no way that anybody could have anticipated where this was gonna go, and I really think she’s done a masterful job.’
Willis withdrew from Hollywood in 2022 after being diagnosed with the brain condition aphasia, which causes the patient’s language abilities to deteriorate.
In 2023, his family announced that his illness had ‘progressed’ and he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Bruce Willis’ wife Emma insisted she is being ‘judged quickly and unfairly’ for the way she has been caring for him amid his dementia decline; Bruce and Emma pictured in 2018
She recently revealed that the ‘hardest decision’ she took while looking after him was moving him into a separate one-story house away from their primary residence
Willis has been surrounded by his close-knit blended family, who have gathered around him in order to help him cope with his health struggles.
During the Diane Sawyer special, Heming explained: ‘Bruce is still very mobile. Bruce is in really great health overall, you know. It’s just his brain that is failing him.’
She added: ‘We have a way of communicating with him that is just a different, a different way, but I’m grateful. I’m grateful that my husband is still very much here.’
Last October, Moore shared her own update on Willis’s condition while speaking onstage at the 2024 Hamptons International Film Festival.
‘You know, I’ve said this before. The disease is what the disease is. And I think you have to be in real deep acceptance of what that is. But for where he’s at, he’s stable,’ Moore said in a conversation with moderator Alina Cho, according to People.
Moore had seen Willis two days prior to her film festival appearance, when he enjoyed a visit with Rumer’s daughter Louetta, one – his first grandchild.
Bruce has been surrounded by his close-knit blended family, including both his wives and all his daughters, who have rallied around him to help him cope with his health struggles
She makes a point of finding quality time with Willis, holding onto the idea of ‘being able to share with whatever we have, for however long we have.’
Moore also shared her advice on having a loved one with dementia, saying: ‘What I always encourage is to just meet them where they’re at.’
She added: ‘When you’re holding on to what was, I think it’s a losing game. But when you show up to meet them where they’re at, there is great beauty and sweetness.’
Glenn Gordon Caron, who created Bruce’s star-making 1980s sitcom Moonlighting, observed in October 2023 that he was losing his ‘joie de vivre’ and ‘language skills.’
‘My sense is the first one to three minutes he knows who I am,’ said Glenn in a devastating interview with the New York Post.
‘He’s not totally verbal; he used to be a voracious reader – he didn’t want anyone to know that – and he’s not reading now.’
