Aside from opening up about her father's illness, Tallulah gets candid about her ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder diagnoses in a new essay for Vogue.
- Jun 2, 2023
AceShowbiz - Tallulah Willis has opened up about her father Bruce Willis' dementia diagnosis. In a lengthy essay for Vogue published on Wednesday, May 31, "The Whole Ten Yards" star detailed the first signs of her dad's illness.
"I've known that something was wrong for a long time," the 29-year-old penned. "It started out with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family chalked up to Hollywood hearing loss: 'Speak up! Die Hard messed with Dad's ears' ... Later that unresponsiveness broadened, and I sometimes took it personally."
"He had had two babies with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he'd lost interest in me," Tallulah, whom Bruce shares with ex-wife Demi Moore, continued. "Though this couldn't have been further from the truth, my adolescent brain tortured itself with some faulty math: I'm not beautiful enough for my mother, I'm not interesting enough for my father."
In the piece, Tallulah also got candid about her ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder diagnoses. "I admit that I have met Bruce's decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I'm not proud of. The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it," she shared.
"I had managed to give my central dad-feeling canal an epidural; the good feelings weren't really there, the bad feelings weren't really there," she explained. "But I remember a moment when it hit me painfully: I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha's Vineyard, and the bride's father made a moving speech."
"Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating," the actress further recalled. "I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes."
Tallulah said she felt "a lot better" after spending time at a recovery center in Texas. She now has "the tools to be present in all facets of my life, and especially in my relationship with my dad."
Tallulah said she's now like "an archaeologist searching for treasure in stuff that I never used to pay much attention to" as she documented her and her dad's time together whenever she came to visit. She added, "I find that I'm trying to document, to build a record for the day when he isn't there to remind me of him and of us."
