'So glad we could celebrate you today,' actor's ex-wife shared in Instagram post
Bruce Willis was all smiles as he and his family celebrated his 68th birthday over the weekend with a sweet serenade.
To help mark his special day, Bruce’s ex-wfe Demi Moore posted a video to Instagram that featured his family — including his wife Emma Heming Willis and his kids — singing “Happy Birthday” as the Die Hard star looked on with a big grin.
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“Happy birthday, BW! So glad we could celebrate you today,” Moore captioned the video. “Love you and love our family. Thank you to everyone for the love and warm wishes — we all feel them.”
Bruce’s daughter Scout also shared her mother’s video, with the caption: “Today has been PROFOUNDLY JOYFULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL !!!!!! HAPPY BW’S BIRTHDAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE !!!!”
But in a separate post that showed her as a young child on her dad’s shoulders, Scout said that the celebration wasn’t “easy.”
“Today is not necessarily an easy day, because it’s a day full of so deep love, and our grief really does show us the depth of our loving for someone,” she wrote. “So I’m trying to be with both today. Grief is a price I’ll always pay to know what it is to feel such love. I’m sending my love to anyone who has ever felt their capacity stretched by the enormity of love and the humanness of grief. I love you.”
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Meanwhile, Bruce’s wife Emma opened up about her feelings of grief and sadness as her husband struggles with frontotemporal dementia.
“I have started the morning by crying as you can see by my swollen eyes and snotty nose. I just think it’s important that you see all sides of this,” she said in an Instagram video. “I always get this message or people always tell me that like, ‘You’re so strong. I don’t know how you do it.’ I’m not given a choice. I wish I was.”
Emma continued, adding that she was doing her best to raise their two children — Mabel and Evelyn.
“Sometimes in our lives, we have to put our big girl panties on and, and get to it and that’s what I’m doing,” she said. “But I do have times of sadness every day, grief, every day, and I’m really feeling it today on his birthday.”
In a separate post, Emma shared a collage of clips with her and Bruce in happier times set to Stevie Wonder’s I’ll Be Loving You Always.
“He is pure love. He is so loved. And I’ll be loving him always. Happy Birthday my sweet,” she wrote.
Bruce stepped away from acting last March after his family revealed he was suffering from aphasia — a neurological affliction that leaves a person unable to communicate.
His condition has worsened and in February his family confirmed that the Hollywood icon is suffering from frontotemporal dementia.
According to the Mayo Clinic, FTD is an “umbrella term for a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behaviour and language.”
“FTD is a cruel disease that many of us have never heard of and can strike anyone,” Bruce’s loved ones wrote in a statement on the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration website. “For people under 60, FTD is the most common form of dementia, and because getting the diagnosis can take years, FTD is likely much more prevalent than we know.”
In an Instagram post earlier this month, Emma said that going forward she is making it her mission to “raise awareness” about the disease and advocate for “caregivers.”
“I’m going to turn my grief and anger and my sadness into something good around something that feels less than,” she said.
“Watch this space,” she added, “because I didn’t come to play.”
In sharing their statement about Bruce’s worsened condition, his family said that if the actor “could” address his medical issues, he would want to spread attention to others stricken by the “debilitating disease.”
“Bruce always believed in using his voice in the world to help others, and to raise awareness about important issues both publicly and privately. We know in our hearts that — if he could today — he would want to respond by bringing global attention and a connectedness with those who are also dealing with this debilitating disease and how it impacts so many individuals and their families.”
mdaniell@postmedia.com