Bruce Willis’ wife Emma Heming admitted that the actor questioned the status of his marriage before being diagnosed with dementia.
“For someone who’s very talkative and very engaged, he was a little more quiet,” Heming, 49, explained in a new interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News.
“And once the family got together, he melted a bit.”
The two’s mothers initially thought that 70 “Sixth Sensory” actors had problems with his hearing.
“He felt like a bit of warm and loving blues, a bit of cold and a bit of cold and removed,” she recalled.
“It was surprisingly scary to go all out against that. I just couldn’t understand what was going on and thought, ‘Can we stay in a marriage that we didn’t feel like we had?'” Hemming added.
Heming said she and Willis were “conversing” about their issues, but the action star would “dismiss” them.
When the doctor issued Willis’ diagnosis, he received news that his family had no cure and could not do anything more.
“I’m not going to leave there without doing anything, nothing. I couldn’t pronounce it in the diagnosis. I couldn’t understand what it was,” she said.
“I was in such a panic. I remember hearing it and not hearing anything else. It seemed I was free to die.”
In March 2022, the Willis family announced that the “Fifth Element” star would be leaving the acting after being diagnosed with aphasia.
The next February, the action star’s family said he was battling frontotemporal dementia.
Hemming, who shares his daughters Mabel, 13, and 11-year-old Evelyn with Willis, said her husband has lost his speech. But she and the rest of his family have adapted.
“We have a way of communicating with him, but that’s just another way,” she told Saywer 79.
Bruce also shares his daughters, Rumer Willis, 37, Scout Willis, 34, and Tallur Willis, 31, with his ex-wife, Demi Moore.
