Bruce Willis' daughter reflects on actor's dementia battle in emotional essay

Tallulah Willis opened up about her father Bruce Willis’ illness in an emotional essay for Vogue.

The Die Hard actor announced his retirement from acting after he was diagnosed with aphasia back in March 2022.

In February, the actor’s family revealed that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

In the essay, Tallulah noted that she had suspected a potential illness “for a long time,” after his father showed signs of “vague unresponsiveness.”

“Later that unresponsiveness broadened,” Bruce and Demi Moore’s daughter continued, “and I sometimes took it personally. He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me.”

“Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father,” she said, touching on her own challenges with body dysmorphia and borderline personality disorder diagnosis.

Tallulah shared that while her dad was “quietly struggling,” she was going through her own issues with anorexia nervosa and ADHD.

Once the signs were exacerbated, they took the action star to a neurologist where “all kinds of cognitive testing was being conducted, but we didn’t have an acronym yet.”

After a long journey to acceptance, Tallulah shifted her perspective to the positive aspects of life and has learned to be present in her “relationship with my dad.”

“I can bring him an energy that’s bright and sunny, no matter where I’ve been,” she shared, adding that in the past she was afraid of “being destroyed by sadness.”

“I can savor that time, hold my dad’s hand, and feel that it’s wonderful. I know that trials are looming, that this is the beginning of grief, but that whole thing about loving yourself before you can love somebody else — it’s real,” she explained.