Bruce Willis's Friend Reveals Actor's Struggles After Dementia Diagnosis
Glenn Gordon Caron, creator of "Moonlighting," offers an update on the star’s condition.
Bruce Willis retired from acting in March 2022 after being diagnosed with aphasia. Earlier this year, the family revealed that the Die Hard star had an updated diagnosis: Frontotemporal dementia. According to the National Institute of Aging, frontotemporal disorders (FTD), sometimes called frontotemporal dementia, are the result of damage to neurons in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. "Many possible symptoms can result, including unusual behaviors, emotional problems, trouble communicating, difficulty with work, or difficulty with walking," they say. This week, a close friend of the star gave an update on his struggles with the condition.
Willis' friend and the creator of his hit show Moonlighting, Glenn Gordon Caron, talked about the actor with the New York Post, revealing that he has declined.
"My sense is the first one to three minutes he knows who I am," Caron said. "He's not totally verbal.
Caron added that "he used to be a voracious reader — he didn't want anyone to know that — and he's not reading now. All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he's still Bruce."
"I have tried very hard to stay in his life," Caron says, adding that he tries to visit the actor on a monthly basis. "He's an extraordinary person."
"The thing that makes [his disease] so mind-blowing is [that] if you've ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre than he. He loved life and … just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest," Caron continued.
"So the idea that he now sees life through a screen door, if you will, makes very little sense. He's really an amazing guy."
"When you're with him you know that he's Bruce and you're grateful that he's there," Caron says, "but the joie de vivre is gone."
Willis starred in Moonlighting for five seasons during the 1980s. It was recently added to Hulu and can be streamed in its entirety.
Caron says he knows Willis is "really happy that the show is going to be available for people, even though he can't tell me that."
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"The process has taken quite a while and Bruce's disease is a progressive disease, so I was able to communicate with him, before the disease rendered him as incommunicative as he is now, about hoping to get the show back in front of people," he noted.
