Bruce Willis’ wife shares actor’s early dementia symptoms

Bruce Willis' wife details early signs of actor's dementia diagnosisABC News

Transcript

00:00Is there a first time, is there a moment, where you thought, what is this?

00:07This is something different.

00:09It's really gray for me, where Bruce's disease started to come in.

00:16You would always love taking the girls to school.

00:18And then those school runs just started to not happen as much.

00:25And I just thought, God, that is so weird, because that was like...

00:27You would just say nothing, or...

00:29Like, I'd step in and just do it.

00:31For someone who was very talkative and very engaged, he was just a little more quiet.

00:38And when the family would get together, he would kind of just melt a little bit.

00:42She remembers how she kept struggling for an explanation.

00:45Could it be his hearing?

00:47Because he had lost hearing and ran ear from a movie.

00:50He did. His first diehard.

00:51He wasn't wearing protective ear covering.

00:53He was firing one of these guns underneath a table.

00:59Thanks for the advice.

01:02And it blew out a big percentage of his hearing.

01:06And I thought, well, okay, well, maybe we're having so much miscommunication because he's not hearing what I'm saying.

01:12He starts searching for words, and she says something that had haunted him in childhood came back.

01:17That stutter.

01:18I started noticing that Bruce's stutter did reappear.

01:23I definitely started noticing it rev up a little bit more.

01:27And most confounding of all, the man who had been the family's protector and her soulmate suddenly seems indifferent, pulling away.

01:35It felt a little removed, very cold, not like Bruce, who was very warm and affectionate.

01:44To going the complete opposite of that was alarming and scary.

01:49You said crazy marital issues that had never been there before.

01:54I didn't understand what was happening, and I just thought, like, how can I remain in a marriage that doesn't feel like what we had?

02:05It doesn't feel like a marriage anymore.

02:08I mean, I did have these conversations with Bruce.

02:10Like, what is happening?

02:12Like, is everything okay?

02:13Like, are you okay?

02:14And, you know, he always just would dismiss it, but it just got very bumpy and very confusing.