What Happened to Bruce Willis? Health Update on Actor's Illness

Since 2022, “Die Hard” actor Bruce Willis, 68, has been diagnosed with multiple health conditions — first with aphasia, a disorder that affects how a person speaks and understands language, and then frontotemporal dementia, also known a FTD. The Willis family has been open about what happened to him and has provided health updates since they first announced the movie star had stopped acting because of his illness.

Here's what to know about Bruce Willis' health in 2023.

The last info that his family shared about Bruce Willis' health was in February 2023, when they revealed Bruce Willis' diagnosis was frontotemporal dementia.

At the time, they shared in a statement on his ex-wife Demi Moore's Instagram that "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."

But since then, his family has shared moments along the way that shed light to how his condition is progressing. For example, in August, Bruce Willis' wife, Emma Heming Willis, shared that she often struggles with staying positive with caring for her husband.

"I have to make a conscious effort every single day to live the best life that I can,” she said in an Instagram video. “I do that for myself. I do that for our two children and Bruce, who would not want me to live any other way.”

"So I don’t want it to be misconstrued that, like, I’m good — because I’m not good," she continued. "But I have to put my best foot forward for the sake of myself and my family.”

Earlier in the summer, on Father's Day, Bruce Willis was doing well enough to meet his grandchild, Louetta, who was born in April 2023 and is the daughter of his oldest daughter, Rumer.

“Seeing my father hold my daughter today was something I will treasure for the rest of my life. His sweetness and love for her was so pure and beautiful,” Rumer Willis wrote on Instagram on June 18. “Papa I’m so lucky to have you and so is Lou. Thank you for being the silliest, most loving, coolest Daddio a girl could ask for. Best Girl Dad in the game …”

Also for Father's Day 2023, Emma Heming Willis shared that she has "deep appreciation and respect" for her husband as he continues to father their daughters, Mabel and Evelyn, as his illness progresses. "Where it might not be 'conventional,' what he’s teaching them will span generations. Unconditional love, kindness, strength, compassion, patience, generosity, resilience," she wrote on Instagram.

A few days later, on her birthday, the mother of two, who turned 45, shared a selfie with Bruce Willis, alongside a message encouraging her followers to support the caregivers in her life.

The Willis family also marked his birthday in 2023 with a video of Bruce Willis' shared to Moore's Twitter account — the first of him since his diagnosis was announced publicly. In the sweet clip, his daughters and wife sing "Happy Birthday" to him as he jokes about their vocal range in the background.

Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, aka FTD, and had to retire from acting. Before his family publicly shared his illness in 2023, they revealed in March 2022 that he had to step away from Hollywood for health reasons and that he was experiencing a disorder called aphasia. Aphasia occurs when a person struggles with speaking, understanding, reading or writing.

Aphasia can be caused by a head injury or stroke, and the onset will usually be sudden, or it can be caused by a disease such as frontotemporal dementia, in which case the communication difficulties get worse over time, experts previously told TODAY.com.

In an essay for Vogue published in May 2023, Bruce Willis' daughter Tallulah wrote that his frontotemporal dementia "chips away at his cognition and behavior day by day."

The early signs of Bruce Willis' dementia included difficulty communicating, aka aphasia, and "a vague unresponsiveness," Tallula Willis wrote in her Vogue essay, "which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! ‘Die Hard’ messed with Dad’s ears.’”

“Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally. He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me,” Tallulah Willis continued, later noting that this "couldn't have been farther from the truth."

She finally realized her father's health was declining when she was at a wedding and the father of the bride gave an emotional speech.

"Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating,” she recalled. “I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”

FTD patients sometimes have “difficulty expressing themselves, understanding what’s being spoken and figuring out the meaning of things sometimes,” Dr. Jagan Pillai, neurologist at Cleveland Clinic's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, previously told TODAY.com.

Yes, it was announced that Bruce Willis was retiring from acting in March 2022, when his family revealed that he'd been experiencing aphasia. Aphasia is a symptom associated with dementia and other illnesses that causes difficulty with communication, both in speaking and understanding written and spoken language.

What is Bruce Willis’ health condition?

Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which includes a variety of neurodegenerative conditions, his family announced in February 2023. FTD impacts the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Its onset begins earlier than other degenerative brain disease, such as Alzheimer’s, and symptoms start on average around age 58, according the Cleveland Clinic. Unlike other forms of dementia, memory difficulties aren’t the hallmark symptom of FTD.

“Most people, when they think of the word dementia, they think problems with memory and Alzheimer’s disease, but FTD doesn’t really show up as problems with memory. ... It affects how people behave, how they interact with others and how they speak,” says Dr. Sami Barmada, director of Michigan Brain Bank and associate professor of neurology at University of Michigan Medicine, previously TODAY.com.

Primary progressive aphasia is a type of FTD, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Aphasia can also be caused by a stroke, and in these cases the loss of ability to speak is usually sudden. But with progressive aphasia, as Bruce Willis has, it usually starts out mild and gets worse as time passes, Barmada said.

Other common symptoms of FTD include apathy or unwillingness to talk, changes in personality and becoming more depressed, lack of social skills and obsessive behavior.

“It doesn’t look like a dementia or something that you can put your finger on. ... Very often you’ll hear people say they just started to act really weird, and they’re not the same person,” Barmada said.

The average life expectancy for someone with frontotemporal dementia, which Bruce Willis has, is seven to 13 years after diagnosis, per the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. Cleveland Clinic said the life expectancy is seven and half years, while Barmada told TODAY.com that 10 years or longer is considered a good prognosis.

Meghan Holohan

Meghan Holohan is a contributing writer who covers health and parenting for TODAY.com. She enjoys cooking, yoga, reading, music and walking her two rescue dogs. Follow her on Twitter to see her recent stories.