Rumer Willis took to social media on Father's Day to give an update on how Bruce Willis is coping with his health battles.
Rumer opened up in a deeply emotional tribute to her dad, as the beloved actor battles frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
“Today is hard,” Rumer, 36, began in her Father’s Day Instagram post.
“I feel a deep ache in my chest to talk to you and tell you everything I’m doing and what’s going on in my life. To hug you and ask you about life and your stories and struggles and successes.”
The post included a carousel of intimate photos of her and her dad over the years, as she reflected on the painful changes that have come with his diagnosis.
“I wish I asked you more questions while you could still tell me about it all,” she continued.
“But I know you wouldn’t want me to be sad today so I’ll try to just be grateful, reminding myself how lucky I am that you’re my dad and that you’re still with me and I can still hold you and hug you and kiss your cheek and rub your head.”
Rumer added that her daughter, Louetta, still gets a spark from Bruce: his “eyes light up” when he sees her.
“I love you so much, dad,” she concluded, sending love not just to Bruce but also “to all those who are in the boat with me or have lost their fathers, to the single moms who are the dads too, to my future baby daddy.”
Emma Heming Willis, Bruce’s wife of 16 years, has also chosen to speak out — but her story comes in the form of a new book.
The Unexpected Journey, out September 9, 2025, offers a raw look into Bruce’s final years in Hollywood.
“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,” she explained on Instagram. “This isn’t a memoir, it’s a self-help guide for caregivers, written to hold space for our heartbreak and our healing.”
The book reveals previously unknown behind-the-scenes details - directors cutting down Bruce’s lines, and even an earpiece used to feed him dialogue while filming Assassin and the Detective Knight trilogy.
These workarounds helped Bruce finish his roles without alerting fans to his cognitive decline.
Emma, 46, shared a moving Father’s Day message of her own: “Happy Father’s Day to all the dads living with disability or disease, showing up in the ways they can and to the children who show up for them. What Bruce teaches our girls goes far beyond words. Resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength in simply being present.”
By 2022, Bruce’s diagnosis was made public. First came the news of aphasia, a language disorder. Then, in 2023, the confirmation of frontotemporal dementia - a progressive disease that eventually forced the Die Hard legend into retirement.