Emma Heming Willis got emotional while discussing the reaction from the public over her decision to no longer live with husband Bruce Willis.
“These are hard decisions. These are impossible — I’m getting choked up thinking about it. They’re impossible decisions. This is not how I envisioned our life,” Emma, 47, said during the End Well 2025 conference in Los Angeles on November 20. “I had to make the best and safest decision for our family and I knew by being honest and open about it that it would be met with a lot of judgement.”
Emma noted that the critics are on “the outside” and she’s been met with widespread support from their family.
“Because they know, they’re in it and I’ve got this beautiful blended family,” she continued during the End Well panel. “I also have Bruce’s mother who is in her 90s. I have Bruce’s brother and sister and cousins and they have been so loving and supportive and nonjudgmental.”
Emma revealed during ABC’s Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey, which premiered in August, that she and Bruce, 70, live in separate homes as the actor continues to battle frontotemporal dementia.
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During last month’s conference, Emma said that she went to therapy before going public with the details of her and Bruce’s living situation.
“It was interesting to see how much judgement and criticism about what a terrible person I am and how could I do this,” she said. “But you know what I say is that if you are not on the front lines of this, in that person’s house day in, day out, 24/7, 365 days a year — then you don’t get a say and you don’t get a vote.”
Emma and Bruce, who married in 2009, share daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11.
“This is the best decision for our family. It was the safest one and our family is now, in essence, thriving,” Emma continued. “People don’t realize all the needs that go unmet behind closed doors and now our children’s needs are met.”
She added, “They are in a home where they can have playdates and sleepovers, these things that we don’t even think about. Their world is completely opened up and so has my husband’s.”
Despite the backlash that she received, Emma said a “weight has been lifted” since she started discussing Bruce’s health publicly.
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“Dementia is messy,” she added. “Caregiving is messy and you’ve got to go with the waves of it.”
Bruce’s family announced in March 2022 that he was diagnosed with aphasia. The following year, his condition progressed to frontotemporal dementia.
During August’s ABC special, Emma explained that Bruce was “still very mobile” amid his condition but his speech had been heavily impacted.
“We’ve learned to adapt, and we have a way of communicating with him, which is just a different way,” she added. Emma also noted to Diane Sawyer that she and their daughters often see Bruce in his new home.
“We are there a lot,” she shared. “It’s our second home, so the girls have their things there. It is a house that is filled with love and warmth and care and laughter.”
