01 June 2023 , 11:50
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Tallulah Willis has revealed she suspected her father Bruce Willis was sick "for a long time" before he received his dementia diagnosis.
The 68-year-old Die Hard star was diagnosed with aphasia in March 2022, with his family announcing that it had progressed to frontotemporal dementia a year later.
Tallulah, who Bruce shares with his ex-wife Demi Moore, said the symptoms started out as "a kind of vague unresponsiveness", which his family assumed was a result of "Hollywood hearing loss".
She explained how they thought years of being told to "speak up" on set had messed with her father's ears.
When Bruce's unresponsiveness worsened, the 29-year-old said she took it to heart and thought he had simply moved on with his new family
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Tallulah Willis has opened up about her father's dementia struggles (@buuski/Instagram)"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," she wrote in an emotional essay for Vogue.
Bruce shares three daughters with his ex-wife Demi - Tallulah, Scout, 31, and Rumer, 34 - and has two children with his current wife Emma Willis - Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, nine.
"Though this couldn't have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math," Tallulah continued.
Bruce's family announced his diagnosis in March 2022 (Getty Images for goop)The 29-year-old touched on her own issues with body dysmorphia and a borderline personality disorder diagnosis.
She had also battled anorexia nervosa and an ADHD diagnosis, while her dad "was quietly struggling".
It wasn't until the summer of 2021 when Bruce's declining health hit Tallulah "painfully".
She had been attending a wedding on Martha's Vineyard when the father of the bride stood up to make 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," she said.
Tallulah had to excuse herself from the ceremony "and wept in the bushes".