Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and moreStay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Bruce Willis’s wife Emma Heming Willis has opened up about taking on the role of caregiver for her husband in a new memoir.Willis’s family announced in 2023 that he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), only a year after they said he was “stepping away” from acting because he had aphasia.Published Tuesday, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path detailed Heming Willis’s journey from receiving the Die Hard actor’s diagnosis, to how she adapted to the caregiving role while still being a mother to their two daughters, Mabel Ray, 13, and Evelyn Penn, 11. Here, we round up everything we learned Willis’s dementia struggle from his wife’s new memoir.Heming Willis was engaged when she first met WillisThe book begins with Heming Willis explaining her relationship with the retired actor and how they fell in love. She wrote that the two met in 2005 through her personal trainer, Gunnar Peterson. At the time, she was leaving the gym when Peterson waved her over to meet Willis. open image in galleryHeming Willis first met her husband at the gym in 2005 (Getty Images)“Was it love at first sight? No. Not at all. At the time, I was engaged. In fact, I didn’t think much of the interaction,” the memoir read. However, Willis had a different view on the situation as he turned to Peterson after being introduced to her and immediately said, “I’m going to marry that girl one day.”Heming Willis was not a fan of Willis’s moviesAfter meeting the actor, Heming Willis continued to see the Pulp Fiction actor at the gym and spoke to her mother about how “nice” and “attractive” he was. Her mother reiterated her engagement, to which she responded, “It was just an observation.”“The truth is, I wasn’t a Bruce Willis fan per se,” Heming Willis wrote. “Yes, I grew up watching Moonlighting but had seen only one of his movies, Armageddon, when it first came out in the late ’90s. Besides that, I didn’t really pay much attention to him.”Before Willis received his formal diagnosis, his wife noticed something was “off”open image in gallery‘I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, it’s very gray, but at some point, our relationship began to feel off,’ Heming Willis’s memoir read (Getty Images for Film at Lincoln)Heming Willis explained that, leading up to her husband’s FTD diagnosis, there was a period of confusion where she knew something was “off.”“I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, it’s very gray, but at some point, our relationship began to feel off,” the memoir read. “There were conversations that I recalled differently than Bruce did, and there seemed to be a lot of miscommunications between the two of us.”She debated addressing these concerns with her husband’s doctor, but had no idea how to describe what she was witnessing. “Although I was uncertain about what was going on, one thing was clear: This wasn’t typical Bruce behavior,” Heming Willis wrote. Heming Willis was told to stand sideways when talking to Willisopen image in galleryHeming Willis was advised not to wear black when caring for her husband (ABC/Getty)Once Willis was diagnosed with FTD, the model began to look for a “dementia care specialist” to ensure she would be able to care for him correctly, which is how she met Teepa Snow. Snow provided tips on some details she should be paying attention to when caring for her husband. “Teepa told me not to wear all black and suggested we replace any doormats in that color. To people with dementia, an area of black can look like a hole, so someone wearing a black T-shirt would look like they had a floating head, and a black doormat can look like a hole in the ground,” she recalled. “She also told me to stand sideways when talking to Bruce, which is a nonconfrontational position, instead of facing him squarely, which can sometimes look aggressive to a person with dementia.”Heming Willis decided to move her husband out of the family homeopen image in galleryThe couple’s two daughters were a large factor in Heming Willis’s decision to relocate her husband (Instagram / Getty Images)While caring for Willis, things slowly started to become unmanageable with stairs and other items in their home becoming a safety hazard. She was told multiple times to begin to consider bringing in a caregiver, but she continuously refused until their neurologist explained the safety concerns that could come up for her, Willis, and their children.In terms of progressing beyond hiring a caregiver and finding an assisted living facility for him, Heming Willis explained that his condition was starting to affect their daughters. “With FTD and other forms of dementia, some people become more sensitive to noise, which can cause distraction, confusion, and agitation. So I had everyone tiptoeing around the house to keep it as peaceful and serene as possible,” the memoir read. “This meant playdates were obsolete and forget about sleepovers. It was like I had a muzzle on our children, and I felt like I was starting to isolate them from having their own lives.”
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Everything we learned about Bruce Willis’ struggle with dementia from his wife’s new memoir
