Emma Heming Willis Reveals How Moving Bruce Willis Into a Different Home Has Helped Him Amid Dementia

Emma Heming Willis has faced countless challenges during her husband Bruce Willis’ dementia journey. But she says none has been more difficult than the decision to move Bruce, 70, into a separate home designed to provide the calm environment he now needs.

Why Heming Willis Calls It The ‘Hardest Decision’

(Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images)

“It was the hardest thing,” Heming Willis, 49, told People in this week’s cover story. She explained that Bruce’s progressive frontotemporal dementia (FTD) “requires a calm and serene atmosphere.”

The one-story house, which the family calls their “second home,” offers a quiet, safe setting with round-the-clock care. It has also created space for the couple’s daughters, Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, to enjoy being kids again. “The kids can have playdates and sleepovers [again] and not have to walk around tiptoeing,” Heming Willis said.

Creating Balance for the Whole Family

(Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

While the move was heartbreaking, Heming Willis acknowledged the positive impact it has had. “Everything just feels a lot calmer, more at ease now,” she said. The new arrangement gives Bruce the peaceful atmosphere he needs while allowing their children to thrive in a lively home of their own.

“We have two young children, and it was just important that they had a home that supported their needs and that Bruce could have a place that supported his needs,” she explained.

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Heming Willis has been open about how fortunate her family is to have the resources to create this setup. “It has opened up Bruce’s world,” she said, adding that it has also helped her step back into her role as wife. “I get to go back to being Bruce’s wife and the kids can be kids and there’s beauty in that and I’m so grateful for that.”

Facing Judgment With Honesty

After first mentioning the living arrangement in an ABC News special, Heming Willis received mixed reactions. In an Instagram post on August 29, she addressed criticism directly.

“What I knew is that by sharing some of our intimate information that we would see these two camps,” she wrote. “It would be people with an opinion versus people with an actual experience. That is what caregivers are up against … judgment from others and criticism from others.”

She added, “Dementia plays out differently in everyone’s home and you have to do what’s right for your family dynamic and what’s right for your person.”

Turning Pain Into Purpose

The family first announced Bruce’s aphasia diagnosis in 2022 before revealing the progression to FTD the following year. For Heming Willis, having a clear diagnosis offered some measure of comfort. “There was relief in understanding, ‘Oh, okay, this wasn’t my husband, it was that this disease was taking parts of his brain,’” she explained. “I just softened.”

Despite ongoing grief, Heming Willis has learned to embrace joy where she can. “While the grief and sadness and trauma is here all the time, I have learned it’s okay for me to also enjoy our life,” she said. “Bruce would want that for me and for our kids, to not wallow in the sadness of it, but also rise to it.”

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