‘He still knows who I am,’ Tallulah says
Tallulah Willis is pulling back the curtain on her father Bruce Willis’ dementia diagnosis.
The 29-year-old daughter of Bruce, 68, and his ex-wife Demi Moore, 60, revealed that the “Die Hard” star spends most of his days on the first floor of his home, which he shares with his current wife, Emma Heming, 44.
While Bruce’s dementia hasn’t affected his mobility, Tallulah said in a Vogue article published Wednesday, he often frequents the “open plan of the kitchen-dining-living room, or in his office” — the latter which she claimed “is filled with the knickknacks he has collected: vintage toy cars, coins, rocks, objects made of brass.”
“He likes things that feel heavy in the hand, that he can spin around in his fingers,” Tallulah added.
“There’s always music playing. My dad is an excellent musician in his own right, an accomplished harmonica player, and he loves his oldies, which span genres from Patsy Cline to Nina Simone.”
Bruce’s family announced that the “Pulp Fiction” star had been diagnosed with aphasia — a brain disorder that affected his ability to communicate and caused problems on the sets of films — in March 2022.
In February, they revealed that he received a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia.
![Bruce Willis and Tallulah Willis celebrate his 60th birthday at Harlow on March 21, 2015, in NYC.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000012000398.jpg?w=1024)
![Tallulah Willis on Bruce Willis' dementia diagnosis](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000012007050.jpg?w=614)
As for the current status of her father’s memory, Tallulah said he still recognizes her, but she also takes lots of pictures around the house and saves all his voicemails “for the day when he isn’t there to remind me of him and of us,” she revealed.
“He still knows who I am and lights up when I enter the room,” she claimed “I keep flipping between the present and the past when I talk about Bruce: he is, he was, he is, he was. That’s because I have hopes for my father that I’m so reluctant to let go of.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Tallulah recalled how hurtful comments made online about her “ugly” appearance impacted her self-worth.
“‘Wow, she looks deformed. Look at her man jaw — she’s like an ugly version of her dad. Her mother must be so disappointed,’” she remembered commenters critiquing a photo of her teenage self while “standing beside my famously beautiful mom.”
![(L-R) Rumer Willis, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Tallulah Belle Willis attend the after party for the Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis at NeueHouse on July 14, 2018, in Los Angeles.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000009265999.jpg?w=1024)
The comments about Tallulah not looking like her mother bothered her for many years — a feeling she also felt when Bruce’s health started to decline.
She claimed she knew something was “wrong” with Bruce for a “long time” before his initial aphasia diagnosis.
“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,‘” she recalled.
“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 continued: “Though this couldn’t have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I’m not beautiful enough for my mother, I’m not interesting enough for my father.”
![Tallulah Willis on Bruce Willis' dementia diagnosis](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011189228.jpg?w=1024)
![(L-R) Rumer Willis, father Bruce Willis, sister Tallulah Belle Willis, mother Demi Moore and sister Scout LaRue Willis pose backstage as Rumer makes her broadway debut as "Roxie Hart" in Broadway's "Chicago" on Broadway at The Ambassador Theater on Sept. 21, 2015, in NYC.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000009266001.jpg?w=1024)
The Post has contacted representatives for Bruce and Moore for comment.
The Vogue piece also discussed Tallulah’s struggles with anorexia nervosa and ADHD, as well as a new Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis she received last June while at a treatment facility following her split from her then-fiancé Dillon Buss.