Tallulah Willis claims that after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, her father, Bruce Willis, still recognizes her.
Tallulah, 29, wrote a first-person essay describing Bruce, 68, who was diagnosed with FTD, a degenerative brain disease, in February after his family initially revealed that he had suffered from aphasia in 2022. She wrote, “I’ve known something was wrong for a long time. The family blamed Hollywood’s hearing loss for the initial foggy unresponsiveness, saying, “Speak up! Die Hard damaged Dad’s ears.”
Tallulah added, “Later, that unresponsiveness widened, and I sometimes took it personally. It was hard not to take the quiet personally. I believed he had become distant from me after he fathered two children with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis.”
She continued, referring to her mother, Demi Moore: “Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tormented me with some flawed math: I’m not pretty enough for my mother, I’m not intriguing enough for my father.” Despite her personal difficulties, Tallulah said that she responded to her father’s health decline with “avoidance and denial”. However, she claimed that she was better equipped to face reality after receiving therapy for her eating issue and a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
Although recovery is likely a lifetime process, Tallulah stated, “I now have the tools to be present in all aspects of my life, especially in my relationship with my dad.” “No matter where I’ve gone, I can offer him a sunny, bright spirit,” she said. “In the past, I was terrified of letting melancholy consume me, but at last, I feel like I can depend on myself to be there.” Tallulah continued, “I can cherish that moment, grasp my dad’s hand, and feel it’s amazing.” The actress, Demi Moore’s mother, admitted to taking “tons of photos” every time she visits her father’s home “of whatever I see, the state of things.”
Tallulah said, “I’m like an archaeologist, looking for treasure in things I never used to pay attention to. I have all of his voicemails on a hard disk. I realize I’m trying to record everything to create a record for the day he isn’t here to remind me of him and us.”
