Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, is set to publish a self-help book in September, “The Unexpected Journey,” which describes the actor’s difficult and private battle before and after he was diagnosed in 2023 with frontotemporal dementia, a degenerative brain disease.
A new report also said the book will describe the “Die Hard” actor’s efforts to continue working as long as possible, including by getting directors to help him scale down his dialogue. According to the Australian News.com.au website, these efforts allowed the actor and his inner circle to keep his decline from becoming immediately obvious to people “on-screen and off.”
But, actually, it’s not the case that Willis’ co-workers didn’t notice something was wrong. They became deeply concerned about his well-being and were disturbed over an alleged incident in which he “unexpectedly” fired a gun on a set, as a lengthy Los Angeles Times investigation revealed in March 2022, shortly after Willis’ family announced his retirement from acting.
In 2022, his family let it be known that he had been diagnosed with aphasia. But they subsequently learned that he had frontotemporal dementia. Heming Willis said on Instagram that the book is intended to offer hope and coping strategies for caregivers of people with dementia, explaining that the book is what “I needed back was Bruce was first diagnosed and I was frozen with fear and uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, nearly two dozen people who worked with Willis told the Times that “The Sixth Sense” star had been exhibiting signs of decline for several years before his announced retirement, and they questioned whether he was fully aware of his surroundings. In the final four years of his career, Willis appeared in 22 films, mostly low-budget, straight-to-streaming thrillers. He often was paid a lucrative $2 million for just two days work and for lending his name to the project, the Times reported.
“Filmmakers described heart-wrenching scenes as the beloved ‘Pulp Fiction’ star grappled with his loss of mental acuity and an inability to remember his dialogue,” according to the Times. The report also confirmed that directors knocked out monologues or pages of dialogue and that an actor friend fed the stars lines through an earpiece, known in the industry as an “earwig.”
But also disturbing for people on the Cincinnati set of the 2020 film “Hard Kill”: Willis allegedly fired a gun loaded with a blank on the wrong cue, the Times reported, citing the accounts of two people familiar with the incident. Fortunately, no one was injured, unlike the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Alec Baldwin’s western film “Rust” the following year.
While the producer of “Hard Kill” disputed that Willis had discharged the weapon, the alleged firing left actors and crew members shaken, the Times reported.
Director Mike Burns told the Times that he became aware of the severity of Willis’ struggles in June 2020. when he was directing him in the film, “Out of Death.”
“After the first day of working with Bruce, I could see it firsthand and I realized that there was a bigger issue at stake here and why I had been asked to shorten his lines,” Burns told The Times. He had to compress all of Willis’ scenes into one day of filming. After Burns worked with Willis again on the 2022 film “Wrong Place,” he said he would not work with Willis again. Burns also expressed relief when Willis stepping back from acting.
Willis’ family, including his wife, declined to comment on the Times report. But now Heming Willis is reportedly ready to open up about her husband’s efforts to continue acting, as well as his other struggles.
On Instagram, Heming Willis said she wants to help others facing the same journey, as well as their families.
“I really wrote the book that I wish someone had handed me the day we got our diagnosis with no hope, no direction … not much,” Heming Willis shared on Instagram. “Today life looks different for me and our family because I was able to put support into place.”
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