Emma Heming says Bruce Willis’ move to second home let her ‘get back to being his wife’ amid dementia battle
Heming describes decision to place Willis in a one-story residence with round-the-clock care as part of adapting family life to his 2023 frontotemporal dementia diagnosis
Emma Heming said moving her husband, actor Bruce Willis, into a second home with a full-time care team allowed her to step away from the role of primary caregiver and “get back to being his wife,” as the couple and their family adapt to Willis’s diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia.
Willis, 70, was diagnosed in 2023 with frontotemporal dementia, a progressive condition that affects language and personality and produces gradual cognitive decline. Heming, who has been married to Willis for 16 years, described the relocation to a one-story residence better suited to his needs as "one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make," but said it was the right choice for the well-being of their daughters, Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, and for Willis’s safety and care.
In interviews promoting her new book, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, Heming described how the separate home is staffed around the clock and has given family members different ways to connect with Willis without the strain she experienced while managing his care at the family primary residence. "Ultimately I could get back to being his wife. And that's such a gift," she told The Sunday Times, adding that the arrangement has allowed friends and family to visit him in a setting that is not her home.
Heming said Willis remains physically mobile and enjoys social time with friends, including a regular "dude hangout" on Friday nights, but that his brain is failing him. "We have a way of communicating with him that is just a different, a different way, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful that my husband is still very much here," she said during an ABC special, Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey. On the Diane Sawyer program, she reiterated that his overall health is good aside from the disease affecting his cognition.
Heming described how she told their daughters that the new residence would be a "second home" where they could keep personal items and spend time with their father. She said the children have adapted to his condition and remain affectionate, coming to sit on his lap and play in the garden when they visit. "You can see the tenderness of it. The girls don't need him to be this or do that. They have really adapted to his disease and they know how to move around him. It's beautiful, but it's hard for them. They miss him," she wrote in her book.
The book also recounts Heming’s experience at diagnosis and the lack of immediate direction from medical providers. She said a neurologist’s warning that caregivers often die before the person with dementia prompted her to seek help and to write a guide she wished she had received at the outset. "I wrote the book that I wish someone had handed me on the day we received the diagnosis," she said, adding that she hopes it "gives them permission to care for themselves. Because if they don't, how will they be able to show up and continue to care for the person that they love?"
Heming has publicly defended the decision to place Willis in the separate home in the face of online criticism, telling Good Morning America that the move "was the safest and best decision — not just for Bruce, but also for our two young girls." She emphasized that dementia presents differently in every household and that families must make choices that balance safety, family needs and the person’s dignity.
Members of Willis’s extended family, including his ex-wife, Demi Moore, and their daughters, have continued to visit and offer support, Heming said. A family insider told the Daily Mail that Willis’s condition is "going downhill fast" and that some relatives "don't know some faces anymore," while noting that his daughters are spending as much time with him as possible.
Heming said the early weeks after diagnosis were isolating and bleak, and that she turned to research and other caregivers for guidance. Her book aims to provide practical and emotional support for families navigating neurodegenerative disease, highlighting the need for earlier diagnosis, clearer clinical guidance and broader support systems for caregivers.
Frontotemporal dementia is a progressive neurological disorder with no current cure. Heming has spoken about the emotional and practical challenges the diagnosis presented and has framed her public disclosures and her book as efforts to raise awareness so other families can access care and support sooner.