Tallulah Willis opens up about dad Bruce's ‘painful days' amid dementia battle

Tallulah Willis shared an update on father Bruce Willis' health and how the family faces the "painful days" due to his frontotemporal dementia.

Tallulah Willis, 30, spoke with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on TODAY on Sept. 18 about the "Die Hard" star's life with the neurodegenerative disease that affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

"He’s doing stable, which in this situation is good, and is hard," she said. "There’s painful days, but there’s so much love."

Tallulah Willis previously called her dad's condition “a really aggressive cognitive disease, a form of dementia that’s very rare,” on a November 2023 episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

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In a May 2023 article for Vogue, Tallulah Willis expanded on her feelings of watching her father's struggles while lamenting what their relationship might have been as she got older.

"I’ve always recognized elements of his personality in me, and I just know that we’d be such good friends if only there were more time," she wrote for Vogue.

Her father's life with FTD has also taught the youngest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore to cherish the moments she does still have with her dad.

"It’s really shown me to not take any moment for granted, and I really do think that we’d be best friends," she said on TODAY. "I think he’s very proud of me. You have to be in the moment. You have to be present."

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Tallulah Willis has been open about her own health as well. She was recently commended for helping others by sharing in March that she was diagnosed with autism at 29 years old.

"It was very emotional," she said on TODAY. "If I'm being honest, I really hated myself and I thought I was very broken. So to learn that the elements of myself that I thought were maladies or wrong or just too much for this world are actually OK, and they just require a little bit more tools. And it gave me more grace for myself."

In addition to helping care for her father, speaking about her autism has also become a driving force in her life.

"I really just want to help people," she said.

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