Rumer Willis Delivers Positive Update on Her Dad Bruce's Crippling Dementia Battle
Rumer Willis has given a postive update on her father's battle with dementia during a new interview.
May 21 2026, Published 3:20 p.m. ET
Rumer Willis has given an unexpected positive update on her father Bruce Willis' heartbreaking dementia battle, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The actress, 37, revealed the 71-year-old has become more "tender" after he was diagnosed with the illness.
Rumer Willis Speaks Out
Rumer Willis said she's so 'grateful' to spend time with her dad, even though he's 'different now.'
Speaking to The Inside Edit podcast, Rumer said: "I'm so grateful I get to go see him. Even though it's different now, I'm so grateful."
She continued: "There’s a sweetness. He's always been this kind of macho dude, and there's like a – fragile is not the right word, but – just a tenderness that maybe being Bruce Willis might not have allowed him in a certain way."
Bruce was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in February 2023, after doctors initially diagnosed him with aphasia in March 2022.
Rumer Willis admitted her dad's form of dementia is not as rare as she thought.
The movie star now receives 24-hour care for the degenerative disease and lives separately from his wife, Emma Heming Willis, and their two young daughters.
Rumer is the eldest daughter of Bruce and The Substance star Demi Moore, who were married from 1987 to 2000. The former couple also had Scout Willis, 34, and Tallulah, 32, together.
Although FTD is considered to be one of the rarest forms of dementia, Rumer said the disease is more "prevalent" than she realized.
She explained: "It's wild to me. So many people come up to me now, and they say, 'My uncle had FTD. My dad had this.'"
'He Can Feel The Love I've Given Him'
The actress previously revealed Bruce Willis does not remember who she is.
Rumer, who is a single mother to her daughter Louetta, shared in an update about her dad's dementia last November that there are times when he does not remember who she is.
"The truth is that anybody with FTD is not doing great,” she said in part on Instagram. "But he's doing okay in terms of somebody who’s dealing with frontotemporal dementia, you know what I mean?"
She continued: "The only way I feel like I could answer that in a way that's like he's doing great... How do I say this? It's like those parameters don't really work anymore in my mind, so this is an interesting question."
Rumer added, "I'm so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him. I'm so grateful that when I go over there and give him a hug, whether he recognizes me or not, that he can feel the love I've given him, and I can feel it back from him.
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Bruce Willis' wife, Emma, revealed the action star does not know he's battling dementia.
"That I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I'm giving, and so that feels really nice."
Radar revealed back in January that the Unbreakable star is unaware he’s battling dementia.
According to wife Emma, he "never tapped in" and "never connected the dots" with his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis.
She explained in the on the Conversations with Cam podcast: "I think they think it's this is their normal, and it's not for everybody, but it is, um, there is this term, this neurological condition that sort of comes with FTD and other types of dementia as well called anosognosia, where it's where your brain can't identify what is happening to it.
"So where people think this might be denial, like they don't want to go to the doctor cuz they're like I'm fine. I'm fine. Actually, it's this is the anosognosia that comes into play; it's not denial. It's just that their brain is changing."
