Tallulah Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore stopped by Today to discuss recently being diagnosed with autism at the age of 29, but also took time to address her father’s health battle.
As fans of the actor learned in February 2023, Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, roughly a year after his family announced his retirement from acting due to aphasia.
During Tallulah’s visit to Today, she spoke candidly with co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, who asked how Bruce was doing. “He’s doing stable, which in this situation is good… and it’s hard,” Tallulah admitted, getting choked up.
Tallulah Willis speaks on TODAY about her father Bruce Willis: “He’s doing stable, which in this situation is good. And it’s hard; there’s painful days – but there’s so much love.” pic.twitter.com/M7EVGVUnVq
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 18, 2024
“There’s painful days, but there is so much love, and it’s really shown me to not take any moment for granted, and I really do think that we’d be best friends. I think he’s very proud of me,” she shared.
This is just the latest update from Bruce’s family, with the most recent coming from his other daughter Rumer, who revealed the retired actor enjoys spending time with his granddaughter, Louetta Isley Thomas Willis, who was born in 2023. “Lou is just starting to walk a little bit, and she was walking over to him, and it was so sweet,” Rumer shared during her own visit with Today in May. “He’s a girl dad, through and through. I saw him with my sisters, my little sisters. So you’re seeing that all come back again.”
Along with discussing her dad, Tallulah got candid about her autism diagnosis as she said, “I was misdiagnosed for many years, so only at 29 got my diagnosis, which is very common, specifically for adult women… I’m very high functioning autistic, and my struggles are more in sensory, so being very sensitive to the world, and rather than more commonly people assume it’s communication.”
Following her diagnosis, Tallulah said, “It was very emotional. It was relief. 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 felt were maladies or wrong or just too much for this world are actually okay, and they just require maybe a little bit more tools.”