Bruce Willis’ Daughter Shares Heartbreaking Message on Father’s Day
For Rumer Willis, the eldest of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's three daughters, Father’s Day has become a difficult 24 hours.
On Sunday, the 36-year-old actress and singer took to Instagram to share a tribute to her dad for Father’s Day, including the challenges that his frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis have caused. The deeply personal message included a carousel photo of Rumer and her dad from over the years.
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“Today is hard,” she began. “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.”
“I wish I asked you more questions while you could still tell me about it all,” Willis 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.”
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Rumer also mentioned the way her dad’s “eyes light up” whenever he sees Louetta, the eldest Willis child’s 2-year-old daughter.
Willis ended her bittersweet letter to her dad by promising to “be grateful for every moment I have with you” and wishing him a happy Father’s Day. “I love you so much, dad,” she wrote.
Willis also took a moment to send her “love 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.”
In 2023, it was reported that the Die Hard actor was having challenges speaking, which is a part of FTD. Willis’ longtime friend and Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron told the New York Post that the two-time Emmy winner is “not totally verbal.”
“He used to be a voracious reader—he didn’t want anyone to know that and he’s not reading now,” Caron continued. “All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce. When you’re with him you know that he’s Bruce and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.”
Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, shared her own Father’s Day wishes earlier in the day. “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,” she wrote. ”What Bruce teaches our girls goes far beyond words. Resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength in simply being present.”