Rumer Willis is sharing another heart-wrenching update about her dad, Bruce Willis.
The “Die Hard” star now has frontotemporal dementia, a progressive brain disorder, after first being diagnosed with aphasia in 2022. His eldest daughter struggled on Friday to describe how her father was doing.
“People always ask me this question,” she said in an Instagram Q&A session. “And I think it’s kind of a hard one to answer, because 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 37-year-old noted that she could just say, “He’s doing great,” but explained that “those parameters don’t really work anymore.” She elaborated in a separate Instagram Story on Friday.
“The answer that I would give is that I’m so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him,” she said. “I’m so grateful that when I go over there and 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.”
Willis married fellow actor Demi Moore in 1987, welcoming Rumer and her sisters Scout and Tallulah before the couple finalized their divorce in 2000. He has since had two more kids with his second wife, Emma Heming Willis, whom he married in 2009.
Heming Willis revealed earlier this year that her husband’s brain “is failing him” — and that “the language is going.”
FTD is the result of neuron damage in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. It can result in unusual behavior, communication issues and emotional problems, according to the National Institute of Aging. There is no cure, notes the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration.
Rumer Willis, who welcomed her first daughter, Louetta Isley Thomas Willis, in 2023, ultimately ended on a note of gratitude Friday, stating: “I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I’m giving, and so, that feels really nice.”
She continued, “I just feel grateful that I get to go over there with Lou and we get to spend time with him. And I get to feel the love that he has for me and that he puts out for me, and I can love him — and be with him.”