Bruce Willis’ wife Emma considered divorce before dementia diagnosis

Emma Heming Willis is getting candid about a difficult period in her marriage to husband Bruce Willis. 

The 47-year-old British-American model and author explained that she considered divorcing the 70-year-old Moonlighting star after he began behaving differently with her. Willis was later diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. 

“I felt like my marriage was crumbling,” Heming Wills recently told Vanity Fair, recalling the events leading up to his diagnosis. 

Initially, the Unexpected Journey author thought her husband’s sudden shift in mood was just something that happens to couples in long-term relationships. The pair, who starred in the films Red 2 and Perfect Stranger together, tied the knot in 2009 and share daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11. (Willis is also dad to daughters Tallulah, Scout, and Rumer with ex-wife Demi Moore.)

However, as the situation escalated, Heming Willis said, she became concerned that Willis no longer loved her and had transformed into someone to whom she didn’t want to be married. “‘What is going on? This is not the person that I married. Something is just so off,'” she recalled thinking to the outlet. “And I just couldn’t figure it out.”

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It wasn’t until 2020 that Heming Willis became so worried about the change she was seeing in Willis that she confided in a friend about her husband. She eventually had to go directly to Willis’ doctor for help as she struggled to figure out what was happening to him. 

“I was very angry, very upset, very sad,” Heming Willis said of the time. “It was really hard for me to just separate what I was pissed at and who I was pissed at. I just wasn’t in a good state of mind. And it wasn’t good for Bruce, it wasn’t good for our children, it wasn’t good for anyone — especially not me.”

Willis was subsequently diagnosed with aphasia — a language disorder that impacts how one communicates — in 2022. That same month, the Armageddon actor’s family issued a statement announcing that he would be retreating from acting because of the neurological condition. 

“As a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” they wrote at the time. “As a result of this, and with much consideration, Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”

However, Heming Willis noted, her husband’s aphasia was merely a symptom of his frontotemporal dementia, and he was ultimately diagnosed with the latter condition in November 2022. 

“It was like the worst of the worst. It was really a terrible time,” she said. “I didn’t know that you can ask for help. There’s so much guilt when you’re thinking that, ‘No, I have to. This is my duty. I must.'”

Last month, Heming Willis faced backlash online after she revealed that Willis now lives in a secondary home near the family’s residence with a professional care team.

“We are there a lot,” she told ABC News correspondent Diane Sawyer in a sit-down interview. “It’s our second home, so the girls have their things there. It is a house that is filled with love and warmth and care and laughter, and it’s been beautiful to see that.”

She later addressed the criticism directed at her in an Instagram video. “The truth is that the opinions are so loud and they’re so noisy,” Heming Willis said, “but if they don’t have the experience of this, they don’t get a say — and they definitely don’t get a vote.”