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Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in 2022. Over the last three years, his family has kept his day-to-day condition private while still giving us fans semi-regular updates. In September, Emma Heming Willis released a poignant book with the lessons she’s learned as Bruce’s caretaker.
Since then, Emma has given some powerful and helpful interviews about how she and her family have been dealing with Bruce’s diagnosis. While at a recent conference, Emma mentioned that she and her family still watch Die Hard with Bruce every Christmastime because…well, it’s a Christmas movie.
Emma Heming Willis and husband Bruce Willis are sticking with the classics this holiday season.
“I think it’s important to put Die Hard on because it’s a Christmas movie,” the model-actress-author, 47, tells PEOPLE exclusively at the recent End Well 2025 conference in Los Angeles. The 1988 action hit starring Bruce, 70, as John McClane is a perennial favorite — including for the Willis family.
“Bruce loved Christmas and we love celebrating it with him,” says Emma. Following her husband’s frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnosis, Emma says, “There is still joy. It just looks different.”
Asked for advice for the families and caregivers of those in similar positions, Emma agrees that it can be “so hard… if it’s a holiday that has always brought so much fun and joy and connection and family,” she says.
“You have to learn and adapt and make new memories, bring in the same traditions that you had before,” she adds. “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.”
My mom’s cousin passed away from dementia early on Thanksgiving morning, so this subject has been on my mind over the last week. What struck me the most about what Emma said was how families have to “learn and adapt and make new memories.” I think that sentiment is applicable for a variety of situations in which life changes so drastically. It is not always easy to adapt and make new memories in dire circumstances, but it is a crucial part of our ability to be able to accept and move forward.
Also, I don’t know where everyone else stands on this, but I am firmly in the camp that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It’s a Christmas movie for both adults and action-movie fans! Sure, it originally came out on July 22, 1988, but that’s just Christmas-in-July. There’s no rule that says a Christmas movie has to drop in Nov/Dec and feature Santa or Rudolph or Frosty. Mr. Rosie and I have a ritual where we watch it every year in mid-December while drinking hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps. Would we do that if it wasn’t a Christmas movie? I think not. We probably wouldn’t even do a yearly rewatch.
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