Emma Heming Neglected Husband Bruce Willis’ Early Dementia Symptoms, and Here’s Why

Bruce Willis’ wife Emma Heming revealed why she and her family ignored the actor’s early symptoms of dementia.

In an interview with City & Country On Tuesday, October 29, Heming opened up about how and why the family initially managed some of the actor’s symptoms, taking into account his history of stuttering since childhood.

“Bruce has always had a stutter, but he is good at hiding it,” Heming, 46, told the outlet.

The British model and actress said it was Willis’ stutter that ultimately led him to become an actor, after a theater teacher at his university told him that if he memorized the script, his stutter would go away.

“When his language started to change, it seemed like just part of the stuttering, it was just Bruce,” Heming explained. “Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young.”

She continued: ‘For Bruce it started in his temporal lobes and then spread to the front part of his brain. It erodes and destroys a person’s ability to walk, think and make decisions.”

Adding: “I say FTD whispers but doesn’t shout. It’s hard for me to say, ‘This is where Bruce ended up, and this is where his illness started to take over.’ He was diagnosed two years ago, but a year earlier we had a loose diagnosis of aphasia, which is a symptom of a disease but is not the disease.

The 69-year-old Sixth Sense actor’s aphasia diagnosis was shared by his family in 2022.