Bruce Willis will always be a proud dad no matter what. His daughter Tallulah Willis shared several throwback photos with the Fifth Element actor, 68, to Instagram amid his ongoing battle with frontotemporal dementia.
“Damn, these photos are hitting tonight. You’re my whole damn heart and Im so proud to be your Tallulah Belle Bruce Willis,” the 29-year-old captioned her post on November 14. In the first shot, the father and daughter sat side by side in a chair together while smiling for the camera. The final image in the carousel featured Tallulah and Bruce posing outside, with Tallulah wearing a sweatshirt that read “Die Hard” as a nod to her father’s hit film franchise.
One week prior, Tallulah opened up about Bruce’s condition during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show. The fashion designer explained to host Drew Barrymore on November 8 that the Glass star is battling a “really aggressive cognitive disease” and a “very rare” form of dementia in addition to aphasia, which limits a person’s ability to speak and write.
“A really beautiful way for me to heal through this is becoming like an archaeologist to my dad’s stuff, his world, his little trinkets and doodads,” Tallulah explained. She also pointed out that she and her family, including mom and Bruce’s ex-wife, Demi Moore, have rallied around him and continued to spread awareness about the disease. “On one hand, it’s who we are as a family,” Tallulah explained. “But also, it’s really important for us to spread awareness about FTD because there’s not enough information out there.”
Nowadays, Tallulah spends time with her dad by “playing music … and sitting in that and this energy of love,” she said. In May, Tallulah wrote an essay for Vogue, which detailed how Bruce and his family discovered his illness.
“It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad’s ears,’” Tallulah claimed in the essay. “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 lost interest in me.”
Tallulah admitted that she didn’t know that FTD “chips away at his cognition and behavior day by day.” In an emotional conclusion to her essay, Tallulah noted that she’s aware the “trials are looming” and that “this is the beginning of grief,” but she is choosing to “savor” this time with her dad.