Emma Heming disputed a headline claiming her husband Bruce Willis was “no longer feeling joy” amid his diagnoses of aphasia and frontotemporal dementia.
“I can tell you that's far from the truth, okay?” he explained in an Instagram reel posted over the weekend. “I need society and whoever writes these stupid headlines to stop scaring people. Stop scaring people into thinking that once they receive a diagnosis of some neurocognitive disease, that's it. It's over.”
And he added: “It's the complete opposite of that.”
Willis, the 68-year-old action star known for “Die Hard” and “The Expendables,” was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022 and frontotemporal dementia in 2023. Heming said Sunday that while she and her loved ones experience conflicting emotions about her health of her husband, this chapter about caring for Willis “is full… of love, of connection, it is full of joy, it is full of happiness.”
Heming, Willis' wife of more than 10 years, went into more detail about the emotional aspect of her husband's health battle in her Instagram caption. “My experience is that two things can be true and exist at the same time,” she wrote.
Feelings of grief, sadness and trauma come with other feelings of “deep love,” “deep connection” and “resilience,” Heming, 45, wrote to his Instagram followers.
“I had to do everything I could to get here, but once I got here, life really started to take on meaning and I had a real sense of purpose,” he said. “There is so much beauty and feeling in this story.”
Heming's latest Instagram post echoed the struggling sentiments he shared on NBC's “Today” show in September. Speaking to “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb, she said receiving her husband's diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia was “a blessing and a curse to finally understand what was happening.”
“That doesn't make it any less painful,” he said at the time. “But just being in acceptance [stage] and being aware of what Bruce is going through makes it a little easier.”
Similarly, in January, Willis' ex-wife, Demi Moore, encouraged people caring for loved ones with dementia to “let go of who you have been or who you think you are.” [were]”And stay in the present. “Then you can really stay in the present and enjoy the joy and love that is present,” she said.
In a second Instagram video shared on Sunday, Heming said the misleading headlines about her husband's condition affect more than just the Willis family. Stories that focus solely on the “doom and gloom” of grief can take a toll on caregivers and their support systems. She encouraged her fans and the media to consider more than the negative “dark cloud” of a dementia diagnosis and to learn more about the disease.
Heming, who shares two young daughters with her husband, has taken to her Instagram to celebrate moments with Willis, from family vacations, holidays, and anniversaries.
“Enough of those stupid headlines, those stupid things that scare people,” Heming concluded in his first video. “Stop doing that. Nothing to see here. Okay?”
