Emma Heming Willis has used a candid podcast appearance to clear up widespread misconceptions about her husband Bruce Willis’s condition, explaining the crucial difference between frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Speaking on the Bossticks podcast on Monday, 15 June, Heming, 47, offered a detailed breakdown of the diagnosis that has affected the Die Hard star since it was publicly confirmed following his aphasia announcement in March 2022.
“It’s called frontotemporal dementia. Or FTD for short. It affects the frontal lobe and the temporal lobes,” she explained.
“The variant, because there’s three different types of variants of FTD, the one that Bruce has affects language. But there’s another variant that will affect behavior and another one that could affect movement.”
One of the most persistent misunderstandings she wanted to address was around memory.
When asked whether Willis’s diagnosis affects his ability to remember the people around him, her answer was clear.
“No it doesn’t. That’s a different part of the brain. So when people say, ‘Oh, does he remember who you are?’ Well, he does because he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, he has FTD. I think that’s a very common misconception that, when you think of dementia, we think of memory loss.”
Heming and Willis, who married in 2009, share daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11. Willis also has three daughters, Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 32, with his ex-wife Demi Moore.
