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Bruce Willis’ daughter has opened up about how she struggled to accept his dementia diagnosis.
Earlier this year, Bruce (68), was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which causes his cognition and behaviour to deteriorate daily.
This came on the heels of his family’s announcement last year that he was stepping away from acting due to being diagnosed with aphasia, a condition that affects his ability to communicate and understand others.
In an emotional essay written for Vogue, Tallulah, Bruce and Demi Moore's third-born, details how the unresponsiveness he suffers as a result of the disease was first attributed to hearing loss caused by loud noises on set.
READ MORE | How Hollywood star Bruce Willis is navigating his journey with dementia with the help of family
But as his condition grew worse, Tallulah (29), who was dealing with her own mental health issues and an eating disorder at the time, misinterpreted the Die Hard actor’s behaviour as disinterest.
“He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me,” the actress writes.
“Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father.”
She says while she was battling anorexia, her dad was quietly struggling with his own health issues, undergoing test after test in a bid to figure out what was wrong.
- It’s a group of disorders affecting the frontal and temporal lobes in the human brain.
- It’s progressive and causes the affected parts of the brain to deteriorate and eventually stop functioning.
- It affects speech, cognition and behaviour.
- It’s one of the least common types of dementia.
Tallulah isn't proud of the way she handled her dad’s decline. She says she tried to ignore the issue but the reality of the situation hit her “painfully” one day.
“I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha’s Vineyard, and the bride’s father made a moving speech. Suddenly I realised that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”
Now, the Bandits star is on a mission to capture and savour every moment with her father.
She says she takes as many photos as possible when she’s with him at his house and has saved every voicemail from him on a hard drive.
“Recently I found a scrap of paper there on which he had written, simply, ‘Michael Jordan,’” she pens. “I wish I knew what he was thinking. (In any case, I took it!).”
She says she aims to brighten up her dad’s days and make him feel comfortable.
Tallulah has been giving fans a sneak peak of her relationship with Bruce for some time on social media.
During the lockdown in 2020, she shared a video of her action hero dad shaving her hair on Instagram.
In 2021 she shared snaps of the two of them on Bruce’s birthday.
“He’s a spaceman, a hero with a badge, a sassy detective with unparalleled banter," she wrote, referring to his iconic screen roles. "But really, this is my dad."
SOURCES: HOPKINSMEDICINE.ORG, VOGUE.COM, NHS.UK, MY.CLEVELANDCLINIC.ORG, ALZHEIMERS.ORG.UK
