Bruce Willis’ Wife Emma Heming Reveals How He Found Ways to Work Despite Dementia

Martin Holmes June 9, 2025, 7:46 am

Bruce Willis and Emma Heming Willis — Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Film at Lincoln Center

Emma Heming Willis has revealed how her husband, Bruce Willis, managed to keep acting in the early stages of his battle with frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Bruce was first diagnosed with aphasia in March 2022 and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in February 2023. He has since retired from acting, but prior to that, he still made appearances on-screen, including the films Assassin (2023) and the Detective Knight series (2022-23).

In Emma’s upcoming book, The Unexpected Journey, which she describes as a “self-help” book rather than a memoir, she reveals how Bruce continued to work despite his degenerative illness. This included wearing an earpiece where he was fed lines from the script.

Per the Australian News.com.au, Emma explains in the book how directors would reduce his dialogue and employ a trusted friend to recite Bruce’s lines to him through an earpiece. His deterioration wasn’t immediately apparent on-screen because the Die Hard star had always had a slow speech pattern stemming from a childhood stutter.

Last year, Emma spoke with Katie Couric for an interview with Town & Country, where she revealed how the early warning signs of Bruce’s dementia were ignored due to his history of stuttering.

“As his language started changing, it [seemed like it] was just a part of a stutter, it was just Bruce,” she shared. “Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young.”

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Bruce Willis' Wife on His Dementia and Feeling 'Shock' on Day of Diagnosis

Since Bruce’s diagnosis, Emma has become an advocate for FTD awareness and continues to show her support for caregivers. Speaking about her book on Instagram last month, Emma told her followers, “I really wrote the book that I wish someone had handed me the day we got our diagnosis with no hope, no direction… Today life looks different for me and our family because I was able to put support into place.”

In the caption of the post, she added, “This isn’t a memoir, it’s a self-help guide for caregivers, written to hold space for our heartbreak and our healing. There’s something profoundly tragic about the reason I had to write this book. But in the process, I discovered what I call the Remarkable Reframe: that even in the depths of grief, there can be meaning, connection, and unexpected beauty.”

She concluded, “I know this book will help others because it’s helping me.”

The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path is scheduled for release on September 9, 2025.