Bruce Willis’ Family Opens Up About His Battle with Dementia

Late last year, Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming, revealed that the action star’s childhood stutter returning signaled the start of his battle with dementia.

On the first signs of his decline, Heming said: “For Bruce, it started with language. He had a severe stutter as a child. As his language started changing, it seemed like it was just a part of a stutter, it was just Bruce. Never in a million years would I think it would be a form of dementia for someone so young.”

Heming married Willis in 2009 and the couple share two young daughters – Mabel Ray, 12, and Evelyn Penn, 10.

The model recently became emotional while talking about the retired star’s condition and being his caregiver during an appearance on the Today show.

She told host Hoda Kotb: “What I’m learning is that dementia is hard. It’s hard on the person diagnosed, it’s also hard on the family. And that is no different for Bruce, or myself, or our girls. When they say this is a family disease, it really is.”