Actress Rumer Willis says the sweet moments with her father have not gone anywhere — and she is holding on to them. In a new People interview, the 38-year-old daughter of “Die Hard” actor Bruce Willis and Demi Moore laid out what daily life looks like now for her 71-year-old father, who has frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and she circled back to the subject in an Instagram video shared Monday, August 24, 2026.
Rather than dwell on what the disease has taken, she described a father who seems content and who is doing about as well as anyone in his position could be expected to do. That impression, Rumer Willis said, comes to her during visits with her three-year-old daughter, Louetta.
“When I get to see him, he sees [daughter] Louetta and me, and he starts smiling,” she told People.
“There’s so much love and joy and tenderness that still exists there,” she added. “And in terms of that, I would say that’s a huge win.” Gratitude is what steadies the family now. “The most important thing for me is that I’m so grateful that I have this time with him for however many years it may be,” she said. “I’m grateful that he seems generally wonderful and, given all of the givens of our situation, that our family is just so loving and together.” There is little road map for dementia, she added, since the condition presents differently in every patient.
Finding Strength on the Hard Days
She has been just as candid about the difficult stretches. In the Instagram video she shared Monday, she said: “I miss my dad, I miss a different version of who he was. Some days are just so hard.” Her aim, she explained, is to “prioritize being present with where he is at now,” and she put the balancing act this way: “The truth is, to be strong is learning to deal with both things at the same time.”
A Diagnosis That Came in Stages
Instagram was the platform Rumer Willis chose in March 2022 when she first told the public about her father’s aphasia diagnosis, a condition that impairs a person’s ability to communicate. That same post noted that he was stepping back from the career that had meant so much to him.
Clarity came the following year. In February 2023, the actor’s frontotemporal dementia was announced, and the relatives finally had a precise label for the illness in front of them. Language and behavior are what the disease attacks; among its symptoms, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) lists memory trouble, slowed speech, personality shifts and declining mental abilities.
For decades, Bruce Willis ranked among Hollywood’s most recognizable leading men, with credits that include “Die Hard,” “The Sixth Sense,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Armageddon,” “The Fifth Element” and “12 Monkeys.” Demi Moore, who was married to him from 1987 to 2000, starred in “Ghost,” “A Few Good Men” and “Indecent Proposal.” Their children are Rumer, Scout and Tallulah.
Why She Took a Genetic Test
Watching the effects of FTD up close pushed “The House Bunny” star to take her own well-being in hand. Function, a health membership whose offerings run to more than 160 advanced lab tests plus imaging and specialized assessments, is the service she signed on with, and she used it to take the APOE genetic test, which measures her risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Her reason is Louetta, she said: she wants to stick around for her daughter as long as she can. Anyone who hopes to invest in health and longevity, she said, could use the membership as a good starting point. Remaining as healthy as she can for as long as she can is not something she treats as optional anymore, she said.
Emma Heming Willis on His Health
Other relatives have spoken publicly as well. An entrepreneur and author who previously worked as a model, Emma Heming Willis has talked at length about caring for her husband; she has been married to the actor for 17 years and shares two children with him. Journalist Diane Sawyer sat down with her for an ABC News special in August 2025, and she said there she was thankful that he remains very much present.
“Bruce is still very mobile, Bruce is in really great health overall, it’s just his brain that is failing him,” she said.
His eldest daughter lands in much the same place, in her own words. A dementia diagnosis brings questions nobody can answer and a timeline nobody can predict, and through all of it Rumer Willis keeps returning to one simple fact. Her father is still here. He still smiles at the sight of her and Louetta, and every bit of the time they have left is time the family intends to use.