Emma Heming Willis Explains How Her Family Navigates Holidays Amid Bruce Willis’ Dementia Battle

Emma Heming Willis is sharing an insight into what holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas now look like as her husband Bruce Willis continues to grapple with dementia.

Speaking to People in an article published on  Thursday, November 27, Heming Willis, 47, put a positive spin on how she and her family spend the holidays following the Die Hard star’s diagnosis.

“Bruce loved Christmas and we love celebrating it with him. It just looks different, so we’ve kind of adapted to that,” she told the outlet at the End Well 2025 conference in Los Angeles, which took place last week.

The model added, “You have to learn and adapt and make new memories, bring in the same traditions that you had before.”

She continued, “Life goes on. It just goes on. Dementia is hard, but there is still joy in it. I think it’s important that we don’t paint such a negative picture around dementia. We are still laughing. There is still joy. It just looks different.”

Bruce’s family revealed he was first diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder in March 2022. The following year, they announced his condition had progressed to frontotemporal dementia, a progressive brain disease that impacts communication, behavior and mobility.

Last week, Bruce’s daughter Rumer, 37, shared an update on her dad’s health via her Instagram. (Bruce shares Rumer with ex-wife Demi Moore, along with daughters Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 31. Bruce and Emma also share daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11.)

A fan had asked Rumer how her dad was doing via an Instagram Q&A, prompting her response.

“People always ask me this question and I think it’s kind of a hard one to answer because the truth is that anybody with FTD is not doing great,” Rumer replied. “But he’s doing OK in terms of somebody who’s dealing with frontotemporal dementia, you know what I mean?”

“The answer that I would give is I’m so happy and grateful that I still get to go and hug him,” she added. “I’m so grateful that when I go over there, and I give him a hug, whether he recognizes me or not, that he can feel the love I’ve given him and I can feel it back from him. That I still see a spark of him, and he can feel the love that I’m giving.”

Heming Willis previously shared that Bruce had been moved to a second home with a round-the-clock care team as his health condition advanced.

“It was one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make so far,” Heming Willis revealed during  an ABC special titled Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey – A Diane Sawyer Special, which aired in August.

She added, “But I knew, first and foremost, Bruce would want that for our daughters. You know, he would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs.”

In her memoir, The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path, which was released in September, Heming Willis shared how the second home had helped.

“One benefit to getting help, whether you bring it into your home or have your person move to a community-based setting, is the ability to get back to your original role in your person’s life,” Heming Willis wrote.

Heming Willis admitted it “took me some time to see it that way and reframe it rather than sitting in the guilt,” adding that she can now “truly enjoy our fleeting time together, and there’s nothing I could ever do to repay our care team for that.”

She added that she is “forever grateful that I get to enjoy Bruce again as his wife and that our kids have their mom back.”