In 2022, Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. Since then, the actor, who has completely withdrawn from the public eye, has been retired. Now colleague and director Glenn Gordon Caron gave an update on Willis’ health.
The screenwriter visits the Hollywood star about once a month and is in constant contact with his wife Emma Heming-Willis, which has allowed him to gain an overview of the development of the disease. Most recently he spoke to Bruce Willis about their 80s hit “The Model and the Sniffer” (original title: “Moonlighting”). The five-season series, whose last episode aired in 1989, made its streaming debut on October 10 on the US platform Hulu.
“The process [„Das Model und der Schnüffler“ auf einen Streaming-Dienst zu bringen] “It took quite a while and Bruce’s illness is a progressive illness, so I was able to communicate with him before the illness made him as uncommunicative as he is now about the hope of bringing the series back,” Caron explained to the “New York Post”. “I know he is very happy that the show can be shown again, even if he can’t tell me that. When I spent time with him we talked about it and I know he’s excited.”
The series tells the story of ex-model Maddie Hayes (played by Cybill Shepherd), who unexpectedly becomes the owner of a detective agency in Los Angeles. Because of a lack of money, she wants to sell the office immediately, but her only employee David Addison, played by Bruce Willis, resists this and finally convinces Maddie to solve criminal cases with him.
The creator of the show is sure that Willis is happy about the new revival of the series, but the joy of life that the actor used to show has completely disappeared. “That what [seine Krankheit] is so amazing [dass] If you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there’s no one who had more joie de vivre than him. He loved life and… just loved waking up every morning and trying to live life to the fullest. “So the idea that he’s now seeing life through a screen door, if you will, doesn’t make much sense,” Glenn Gordon Caron told the daily.
Frontotemporal dementia is manifested by impaired speech and motor skills, as well as changes in behavior and personality. A person’s self-knowledge may also be limited because the disease affects the frontal lobe of the brain. Although Caron believes that his long-time colleague recognizes him after about one to three minutes, he is still “not completely verbal”. “He used to be a voracious reader… and now he doesn’t read anymore. All of these language abilities are no longer available to him, and yet he is still Bruce. When you’re with him, you know he’s Bruce and you’re grateful he’s there, but the joy of life is gone,” says the director, summing up Willis’ health situation.
His wife Emma Heming-Willis also commented on the actor’s condition in September 2023. She doesn’t let her partner’s illness take away her joy in life. “There are so many beautiful things that happen in our lives,” she says. “It’s really important for me to look away from the grief and see what’s happening around us. Bruce would really want us to enjoy what is. He would want that for me and our family.”