Bruce Willis’ wife Emma Heming has confessed it’s been “very painful to watch” the actor slowly slip away as his disease progresses and his health deteriorates, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Heming, 47, assumed the role of the Sixth Sense star’s full-time caregiver after he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2022.
A year later, the actor’s family publicly announced his diagnosis.
Heming Admits Disease Progression is ‘Very Painful to Watch’
Heming shared an update on her husband’s health during an appearance on ‘The Tamsen Show.’
Since Willis’ family shared the devastating health update, Heming has been open about the highs and lows that have come with caring for her ailing husband full-time.
During a recent appearance on Tamsen Fadal’sThe Tamsen Show podcast, the 47-year-old explained the heartbreaking process of watching Willis’ disease take over.
She said: “We’ve been with Bruce every step of the way of his disease and his disease progresses and he declines.
“So, it’s not like this fast track into like, oh my gosh, he’s not communicating.”
Heming said she’s ‘not able to have a conversation’ with Willis anymore.
Heming continued: “We’re not able to have a conversation anymore. It’s just been a slow burn. Um, and that’s very painful to watch as well.
“We communicate with him in our own special way that works for him, that works for us. It looks different from, you know, what the norm would be, but we’re not dealing with anything that is normal.”
In her book, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, Heming wrote about leaving the doctor’s office after receiving Willis’ diagnosis with only a pamphlet about his disease.
Willis and Heming’s ‘Traumatic’ Doctor’s Appointment
Heming recalled the ‘traumatic’ day Willis was diagnosed.
When asked more about that moment, Heming said they left the appointment “with no hope, no road map, no support, just to check back in in a couple of months because there is no treatment and there is no cure.”
Heming noted how “traumatic” the experience was and how the uncertainty led to more devastating questions, like how the couple’s two young daughters, who were 8 and 10-years-old at the time, would need, as well as what the disease meant for Willis’ daily life.
As RadarOnline.comreported, Heming has had unlikely support navigating her husband’s health crisis: his ex-wife Demi Moore.
The actor has been moved into a separate home as he required full-time care.
Moore, 63, and Heming recently teamed up to host a star-studded fundraiser benefitting the nonprofit Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, which supports those affected by the same type of dementia Willis, 70, suffers from.
The event was held at a loft in New York City, where Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, singer Norah Jones, and R&B legend Mavis Staples all performed sets in honor of Bruce.
While Moore shared how the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration was “an important cause to our whole family,” she also praised her ex-husband’s wife “for her work bringing this all together — and so much more.”
