Emma Heming Willis is continuing to raise awareness about her husband Bruce Willis’ illnesses and the early symptom she never in her “wildest dreams” would’ve imagined was a sign he was sick.
Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia, a neurological condition that affects one’s ability to communicate, in 2022. The following year, the “Die Hard” actor received an additional diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Heming Willis spoke to NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas on Tuesday about the initial symptom Willis had that she recognized, but didn’t realize was a warning at the time.
“I think for me what I noticed was that his stutter started to come back,” the model said. “Bruce had a severe stutter when he was a child that he held onto, actually, his life, but was able to kind of get a handle on it, I think, in his adult years. Then I started seeing that it started coming back. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that was now becoming a symptom of FTD.”
She previously opened up about their miscommunications prior to the actor’s health diagnosis, which made her think they were heading for a divorce.
“I felt like my marriage was crumbling,” the author told Vanity Fair in September.
Heming Willis told the outlet that she thought to herself, ”‘What is going on? This is not the person that I married. Something is just so off,’” she said, admitting that she “just couldn’t figure it out.”
The personality clash led the two to eventually see a doctor.
“I finally understood that those crazy marital issues were not Bruce,” Heming Willis said in a September interview with Oprah Winfrey. “Neither were those off moments and subtle shifts in his personality. They were the result of his brain being dismantled, taking part of the husband I knew and loved with it.”
Heming Willis recently published a book about her caretaking journey, called “The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope and Yourself on the Caregiving Path.”
In her interview with NewsNation on Tuesday, she described caring for the actor as “one of the most rewarding and transformative experiences of my life.”