The holidays look different for the blended Willis family as matriarch Bruce battles frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA).
“We have to learn, we have to adapt, we have to make new memories (but) we have to bring in the same traditions that we had before,” the actor’s wife Emma Hemming told People magazine at the Endwell 2025 conference in Los Angeles last week, adding that “life goes on.”
Mr. Hemming, 47, acknowledged that “dementia is hard,” but insisted that “there is still joy in it.”
She elaborated further. “I think it’s important not to paint such a negative picture of dementia. We still laugh. There’s still joy. It just looks different.”
Hemming didn’t reveal what her family had planned for Thanksgiving, but teased their plans for Christmas.
“Bruce loved Christmas. We love celebrating Christmas with him,” she said, before poking fun at his most famous film, adding, “I think it’s important to play ‘Die Hard’ because it’s a Christmas movie.”
As for the family’s daily life, Mr Hemming – who shares Bruce, 70, and daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11 – described it as “very simple” and “always really been that way” as the family focuses on “just being with him”.
Mr Hemming’s stepdaughter Rumer Willis recently made a similar comment, telling her Instagram followers in a candid video that she was “so happy and grateful” to still be able to “hug” Mr Hemming. And “whether he recognizes (her) or not,” she believes he “recognizes love,” and she feels it in response.
Although Bruce isn’t the father he once knew, Rumer, 37, can still see “that spark in him” and “feels great.” She is also grateful to be able to take her 2-year-old daughter, Louetta, to her grandfather’s house.
Bruce shares Rumer, daughter Scout Willis, 34, and daughter Talulah Willis, 31, with his first wife Demi Moore, 63.
The Willis family announced in March 2022 that the movie star suffered from aphasia and would be retiring from a decades-long acting career.
They revealed his FTD diagnosis the following February.
Ms Hemming revealed in August that she had made the “difficult decision” to move her husband to a separate home nearby, noting that his neurodegenerative disease requires 24-hour care in a quiet, comfortable and safe environment.
