Bruce Willis' daughter Tallulah opened up about her experience dealing with her father's health battle. In an essay for Vogue, Tallulah shared that she had “known that something was wrong for a long time.”
It's been four months since Bruce Willis' family shared his frontotemporal dementia diagnosis, and over a year since they announced he would retire from acting. “It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness,” she started, “which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss.”
It was hard for his 29 year old daughter, especially because she was taking things a bit more personally, she said, because he expanded his family and she had some of her own health problems. “I admit that I have met Bruce's decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I'm not proud of,” she said. “The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it.”
At the time, Tallulah was dealing with anorexia, understanding her ADHD diagnosis, and depression. “While I was wrapped up in my body dysmorphia, flaunting it on Instagram, my dad was quietly struggling,” she said. “All kinds of cognitive testing was being conducted, but we didn't have an acronym yet. I had managed to give my central dad-feeling canal an epidural; the good feelings weren't really there, the bad feelings weren't really there.”
Then she realized something that broke her heart. “I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha's Vineyard, and the bride's father made a moving speech,” said Tallulah. “Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”
This is the beginning of her grief, she said, but she's found comfort living in the moment.
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