Bruce Willis, 68, shared a special moment with his first grandchild, Louetta, in new loving photos posted by his daughter Rumer Willis. The actor, who has been diagnosed with dementia, could be seen sweetly holding the bundle of joy, whom the new mom, 34, welcomed with boyfriend Derek Richard Thomas in Apr., while he was standing outside by a pool, in the Father’s Day-themed Instagram post. Another photo showed him posing with Rumer, who put her head on his shoulder, as she held Louetta, who adorably looked up at her grandfather.
The devoted parent also added photos of Derek with the tot and wrote a touching caption that honored both fathers. “Fathers to the old and new. Seeing my father hold my daughter today was something I will treasure for the rest of my life,” the beginning of her caption read. “His sweetness and love for her was so pure and beautiful. 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….”
“@derekrichardthomas Happy 1st Father’s Day,” she continued. “Thank you for building a beautiful garden for Lou to play in and eat from. 🌱Thank you for filling the house with music for her to hear . Thank you for all the late night diaper changes and silly faces. I’m so grateful our girl has a papa that loves her so much and someone so goofy and weird so she knows that’s ok for her to be too. Thank you for the greatest girl I could imagine in my wildest dreams.🧡.”
After Rumer shared her post, her followers were quick to comment with support and love. “That second picture when she looks at her Grandad that’s the one – totally amazing and doesn’t even know how much the world loves him 😍,” one follower wrote. “Omg her looking up at your dad 🥹,” another added, while a third shared, “That pic of Lou looking at your Dad, Priceless! She knows how much she is loved and how much love she will (already has) give him. The love we have for a grandchildren is unexplainable!”
Rumer’s latest set of Father’s Day photos come just a few weeks after she wrote an essay about her dad’s dementia diagnosis for Vogue. In it, she admitted she had “known something was wrong for a long time” and said it “It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss.” She went on to explain that she initially took his lack of responses as a lack of “interest” in her, but when she realized she was wrong and found out he was suffering from dementia, she decided to capture as many moments as possible with him.
“Every time I go to my dad’s house, I take tons of photos — of whatever I see, the state of things. I’m like an archaeologist, searching for treasure in stuff that I never used to pay much attention to,” she wrote. “I have every voicemail from him saved on a hard drive. I find that I’m trying to document, to build a record for the day when he isn’t there to remind me of him and of us.”