Bruce Willis’s wife Emma Heming Willis has provided more insight into her decision to move the actor into a separate home amid his dementia diagnosis.
Heming Willis, 47, faced backlash after sharing the news that the 70-year-old Die Hard actor, who has frontotemporal dementia (FTD), was living in a one-story home near the family’s main house.
Now, in a new interview with People, Heming Willis explained why the decision made sense for Bruce and their family.
“Dementia plays out differently in everyone’s home and you have to do what’s right for your family dynamic and what’s right for your person,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking to me. But this is how we were able to support our whole family, [and] it has opened up Bruce’s world.”
With her husband — to whom she has been married since 2009 — requiring “a calm and serene atmosphere,” Heming Willis told People she decided to move Willis to a home that is more conducive to his needs.
“We have two young children, and it was just important that they had a home that supported their needs and that Bruce could have a place that supported his needs… The kids can have playdates and sleepovers [again] and not have to walk around tiptoeing,” Heming Willis said of the family’s arrangement.
“Everything just feels a lot calmer, more at ease now.”
Heming Willis previously opened up about the isolating nature of her husband’s shocking diagnosis in an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer on the ABC special Emma & Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey.
“To leave there with nothing, just nothing, with a diagnosis I couldn’t pronounce, I couldn’t understand what it was,” Heming Willis recalled of hearing the news from doctors. “I was so panicked. I remember hearing it and not hearing anything else. I was free-falling.”
“I really felt like I was so alone, so isolated, felt like what we were going through as a family, what Bruce was going through, was so singular,” she continued.
She stepped in to become Bruce’s 24/7 caregiver in addition to her responsibilities tending to the two young daughters she shares with him. Part of that meant limiting her daughters’ activities in the house, such as playdates and sleepovers, which presented a different set of challenges to navigate.
“I didn’t know if parents would feel comfortable leaving their child at our home, so, again, not only was I isolated, I isolated our whole family. You know, the girls were isolated too, and that was by design, I was doing that,” Heming Willis explained.
“It was a hard time. It was a really hard time.”
