Emma Heming Willis is getting candid about celebrating Father’s Day with husband Bruce Willis amid his ongoing battle with frontotemporal dementia.
“Happy Father’s Day to all the dads living with disability or disease, showing up in the ways they can and to the children who show up for them,” Heming Willis, 46, wrote via Instagram on Sunday, June 15. “What Bruce teaches our girls goes far beyond words. Resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength in simply being present. This photo says so much. Love deepens. It adapts. It stays, even when everything else changes.”
Alongside the message, Heming Willis shared an image of daughter Evelyn, 11, giving a soft smile for the camera as she cuddled up to Willis, 70. The Die Hard actor’s face was not visible in the photo. (Heming Willis and Willis also share daughter Mabel, 13.)
“But to be fair to myself, these symbolic days stir up a lot. I’m profoundly sad today. I wish, with every cell in my body, that things could be different for him and lighter for our family,” Heming Willis continued. “As they say in our FTD community, ‘It is what it is.’ And while that might sound dismissive, to me, it’s not. It grounds me. It helps me return to the acceptance of what is and not fight this every step of the way like I used to.”
She concluded, “Today, let’s celebrate the badass dads, those who are here, and those we carry with us ???? Onward.”
Willis’ eldest daughter, Rumer, reposted the snap via her Instagram Story on Sunday. (Willis shares Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 31, with ex-wife Demi Moore.)
Heming Willis also shared several throwback photos via her Instagram Story on Sunday, including Willis spending time with his youngest daughters. In an upload of Willis wearing Uggs while hugging Mabel and Evelyn, Heming Willis wrote, “I miss and mourn what was. Even those Ugg days. I want it all back.”
Willis’ family announced in 2022 that he had been diagnosed with aphasia and would be taking a step back from acting. His loved ones later shared that he received a “more specific diagnosis” of frontotemporal dementia, which they said is the “most common form of dementia” for people under the age of 60.
“Today there are no treatments for the disease, a reality that we hope can change in the years ahead,” the family wrote in a statement via Instagram in February 2023.
One year later, Heming Willis shared an update on how she’s coping amid her husband’s health battle.
“Today I’m much better than I was when we first received the FTD diagnosis,” Heming told Town & Country in 2024. “I’m not saying it’s any easier, but I’ve had to get used to what’s happening so that I can be grounded in what is, so that I can support our children. I’m trying to find that balance between the grief and the sadness that I feel, which can just crack open at any given moment, and finding joy.”
