Demi Moore shares update on Bruce Willis’ health amid dementia battle

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Demi Moore has given Bruce Willis’ fans an update on the actor’s health as he continues to battle dementia.

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The pair divorced over 20 years ago, but have maintained a close relationship. In the wake of Willis’ diagnosis last year, Moore, along with their three children — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah — and the Die Hard star’s wife, Emma Heming, with whom he shares two daughters, Mabel and Evelyn, has shared the advice she gives Willis’ loved ones when it comes to dealing with his illness.

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“What I’ll share is what I say to my children, which (is) it’s important to just meet them where they’re at and not hold onto what isn’t, but what is, because there’s great beauty and sweetness and loving and joy out of that,” she shared during an appearance this week on Good Morning America.

Moore went on to add, “I think, given the givens, he’s doing very well.”

The comments echo a similar message Moore gave while speaking to Andy Cohen during a recent SiriusXM Town Hall.

“When you let go of who they’ve been, or who you think they (are), or who even you would like them to be, you can then really stay in the present and take in the joy and the love that is present and there for all that they are, not all that they’re not,” she said.

The former couple were married from 1987 to 2000, but have remained close friends since the split with Moore regularly sharing photos of her ex on social media, including a post last year when he celebrated his 68th birthday.

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Moore’s update comes nearly two years after Willis’ family announced that he had been diagnosed with Aphasia and would be “stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him.”

Last winter, the actor’s loved ones revealed that he is suffering from a type of dementia known as frontotemporal dementia.

“Since we announced Bruce’s diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruce’s condition has progressed and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD). Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis,” they shared in a message with his fans.

According to the Mayo Clinic, frontotemporal dementia is an “umbrella term for a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behaviour and language.”

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In October, Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron said that Willis’ love of life is slipping away as his dementia progresses rapidly.

“The thing that makes (his disease) so mind-blowing is (that) if you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre than he,” Caron said in an interview with the New York Post. “He loved life and … just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest … When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.”

Speaking on the TODAY show in September, Heming said the disease was taking a toll on the people closest to her spouse.

“Dementia is hard,” Emma said. “It’s hard on the person diagnosed, it’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say this is a family disease, it really is.”

When co-anchor Hoda Kotb asked if her partner knows what is happening to him, Emma said she was unsure.

“It’s hard to know,” she replied. “It’s hard to know.”

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X: @markhdaniell

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