Tallulah Willis, daughter of action legend Bruce Willis has opened up on her father’s condition in a touching essay for Vogue. Even before the diagnosis, Tallulah said; “I’ve known that something was wrong for a long time.”
Tallulah is the youngest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s three daughters. She followed the footsteps of her father appearing in 1995 ‘The Scarlet Letter’. The actress mentioned that, she received her fathers condition with some kind of denial and avoidance and she is not proud of it.
“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,”
The family of Bruce Willis announced earlier this year that, Bruce’s aphasia diagnosis has worsen and progressed to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurological disorder impacting his cognition and speech. Tallulah admitted that, though the family reached out to Hollywood on Bruce’s condition, sometimes she takes it personal.
“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 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. 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 further explained the reason behind her decision to take it personal.
“He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. 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.”
The daughter of the superstar further added that, she struggled to deal with her fathers condition because she was too sick to handle it.
“The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it. … While I was wrapped up in my body dysmorphia, flaunting it on Instagram, my dad was quietly struggling.”
She also stated that, the reality of her father’s condition hit her when she was at a weeding and the bride’s dad gave a moving speech which forced her to weep in the bushes.
“But I remember a moment when it hit me painfully: I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha’s Vineyard, and the bride’s father made a moving speech. Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating.”
Tallulah Willis also added;
“In the past I was so afraid of being destroyed by sadness, but finally I feel that I can show up and be relied upon. I can savor that time, hold my dad’s hand, and feel that it’s wonderful. I know that trials are looming, that this is the beginning of grief, but that whole thing about loving yourself before you can love somebody else — it’s real.”
