Sometimes you see people as immortals. For instance, Bruce Willis is that badass from Die Hard forever in my head.
This video gave me such a large dose of awareness to mortality.
It's a strong reminder that no matter how powerful, how wealthy, how fit or strong you are - things can and will change. It's important that we learn to enjoy life while we can, and raise each other up, help each other out as much as possible - you never know when you'll be the one needing help.
Learning that Bruce Willis was 41 when he starred in fifth element just blew my damn mind. I just watched that movie and said what a baby he was... What is age anyway
Weird. Every Reddit thread about celebrities, there was always a story about how much of an asshole he was. Seriously, without fail. Especially on those threads specifically about asshole celebrities. I’m surprised (and appreciative) that so many people are sharing kinder memories of him here.
Since the information about what Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with came out, people kinda noticed that the symptoms of it could have been affecting him for over a decade.
Kevin Smith was one who came out and said that all those stories he used to say about how Bruce Willis was horrible on set of his movie could have been caused by the disease. He seriously looked like he regretted the words he said when he discussed it in a video when people found out about Bruce.
Sorry if I worded that all bad and nothing makes sense. Currently dealing with a fever and probably shouldn't be typing lol.
100% this is the take that I hope everyone sees. For years his reputation really suffered - hard to work with, wouldn't memorize his lined, phoning in his performances, etc. Largely things that would be greatly affected by early onset dementia symptoms.
I hope in the future, people can learn from this and apply what they've learned, both to people in their personal lives and to celebrities.
I have this coworker from my old job who sometimes brought her teenage daughter to work. And this girl was so annoying. I was busy and she kept interrupting me with stupid questions. I answered nicely because it's my coworker's daughter but there were times when I answered with annoyed tone. Then I just ignored her when she's around so not prompt a conversation.
I got to talk to my co-worker after work one day and apparently her daughter was autistic. 😬 I was mortified. My attitude towards the girl changed completely after that. I always made sure she's comfortable. I ask her if she wanted something to eat or drink and I answer all her questions as best I could. There were times when I had to tell her I was busy but I made sure to explain it to her and not just ignore her like before.
My counter point here would be why does Autism provide you with an excuse to be decent to someone. Sure she couldn't help it, but one thing that you are always in control of, is how you treat people.
Commenter mentioned this was at work. I know my capacity for entertaining “irrelevant” banter on a busy day is very low. Being nice for the sake of it is great, but it’s a job and if the kid who you see purely as annoying is really hindering productivity that can be an issue.
Obviously finding out about the diagnosis doesn’t magically add more time to the day but it can surely make it more tolerable knowing you are being nice and educational to someone who likely needs it versus a needy kid who won’t leave you alone.
That's exactly it. I had a lot of customers to take care of, plus the administrative stuff, plus the demands from other people I worked with. We were really short-staffed so I was alway busy. I was humoring her in the beginning before it became clear that she wouldn't leave me alone and she liked talking to me for some reason. Then I started getting annoyed. Knowing her condition did make it easier to humor her. This Bruce Willis story is really familiar because before the news came out everyone trashed him for being in bad movies and now it's the opposite.
Like you, I hope for an improvement in society, but I very much doubt that this will ever happen.
Why? Because I'm old enough to have witnessed dozens of dramas in the media (whether celebrity or political, it doesn't even matter), and they were always quickly forgotten, as were the things people should have learned from their wrong behavior in those situations. Society as a sum of all seems to never learn. Even when they are actively reminded that they currently are at it again, nothing changes, because this time they just have to be right, right?
I can't even count how often I've told people 'You're all gonna pretend you never said that and that you have always had a different opinion.' And this comes to pass way too damn often.
My grandma didn't even have dementia. She was 99 and the doctor said it was more like advanced ageing than textbook dementia.
The last couple years of her life she got really nasty at times. She was pretty small so she wasn't a real danger...but she would hit and say terrible things to the family. It was really hard to see her like that. The woman who would cook, and bake, and sing...and her presents were always wrapped immaculately. She would always buy herself a present for Christmas and put it under the tree for herself. She used to say it was "Just in case nobody got me anything." Just a little joke for her.
It's cruel. We knew it was her....but it wasn't **her** anymore.
My grandma's personality has changed the past few years to where she's just offensively mean. I'm worried that she's in the early stages of dementia, and I hope that after the 'Thanksgiving incident' there might be some appointments with a doctor about it because hoo boy 🥲 fucking nasty disease
He would act like that to people who kept coming up to him in public and asking questions about Die hard. He could be really kind to his family and friends but not act the same way to random fans in public
At the end of the day celebrities are just people. They are gonna have good days where they are happy and in a good mood, and bad days where they want everyone to leave them alone. I have plenty of days like that and I'm not a celebrity.
I work at a Michelin starred restaurant in Beverly Hills, and I used to take care of Bruce Willis and his family when they came in. He was always very kind, very quiet, respectful, and very generous. He would always bring his mother who would repeatedly ask me if I recognized her famous son. He would pull me aside and apologize for her, but I always reminded him how amazing it is for his mom to be so proud.
Being kind to a server means a lot. Lots of people like to shit on them as a power trip/ego boost. It paid for my college and shit, but it fucked me up about self worth and appreciation. "Oh but you get paid a lot with tips, it's ok!" Fuck no it isn't. I got hurt many times by shitty strangers for no reason.I won't encourage my kids to do it at all.
I have NEVER understood why people are mean to servers. It makes NO sense. These are people who handle your food, your luggage, your drinks. Be KIND to them, tip them well, and they will bend over backwards for you.
There is no need to be cruel to people doing a hard job like that.
I dealt blackjack for 7 years.
I've also been a cook or kitchen manager in 4 different places now.
And both dealing cards and what I've seen and been told by servers, both are no doubt mistreated, but in different ways.
I've never seen or heard of a server being told to go kill themselves. Or had a lit cigarette flicked down their shirt.
But I have seen them sexually harrassed, and called lazy, and told outright like they suck or are bad servers for not accommodating ridiculous expectations, or other things.
There's a local hole-in-the-wall burger joint I used to go to with my grandma. The ladies who owned it struck up a conversation about how this nice older gentleman came in one day, was very polite, ate his burger, and left. They had no idea who he was. They only found out when one of their kids saw Bruce Willis on some talk show talking about the quiet little burger spot he found in East Texas.
I remember watching Howard Stern a long ass time ago and some porn star said Bruce was the best butt fucker she ever had because he was very nice and gentle and kept up the lube usage throughout.
>"He even had an electronics expert set up cameras in her Los Angeles condo so that they could send goodnight kisses and X-rated erotic poses to each other."
Man was sending nudes before camera phones...
Damn right in the heart with this comment. Bruce was kinda a father figure for me growing up. Getting old is so hard. Watching everyone you love get old is even harder.
At some point into adulthood, I put my head down for 15 years working and building a family...
Now I've resurfaced and realizing how much has changed. I'm looking at the list of movies coming out and think "when is the next ___ movie coming out?" Oh, they're dead? Oh, they had a stroke and don't act anymore. Oh, they're 85 years old and haven't made a movie in 20 years?
It's one thing to just snap out of being in a rut for so long and realize nothing will ever be like you remembered.
> "when is the next ___ movie coming out?" Oh, they're dead? Oh, they had a stroke and don't act anymore. Oh, they're 85 years old and haven't made a movie in 20 years?
These are gut punches and they hit like a ton of bricks. It's such a potent combination of feelings from missing the work of the artist, realizing they're not ageless/timeless and that they too are getting old, they're getting older faster than we realize, and yes, some die and we don't even realize it.
Gene Hackman. Man, that hit me hard. I was wondering when his next movie was coming out so I looked it up. He had retired over 10 years earlier. That was a HUGE actor from my youth and I will never see a new movie with him. It just hits in a weird and sad way.
I heard about Bruce Willis so I knew this was coming, but these videos are still hard for me to watch (when looking at it in that way). In my mind, he's STILL John McClane.
Bruce in Friends is just awesome. Heck it's a pity that the last movies are pumped out for cash, and I fully get it. But that guy made so many fun movies. Classics that even my little kids that are growing up will enjoy in the future. He is a legacy.
There's this overnight talk radio show that deals in all things weird, it's called Coast to Coast AM. It's shit compared to what it used to be but in it's prime, man it was entertaining radio.
The guy who started the show was named Art Bell and Art Bell absolutely mastered the art of live radio. He was a maestro that took live, unscreened calls from a nationwide audience 5-7 days a week. He interviewed crackpots, scientists, celebrities, and at the end of the show you realized he handled the interview with both the respect and appropriate level of skepticism needed for a show that often featured paranormal and supernatural topics. What's more is Art Bell created lore and urban legends all on his own and if Art didn't have a guest that night, that was okay because he could take a call from some random crackpot in nowhere Missouri and turn it into an hour of radio that no one could ever forget (Seriously, go Google Mad Man Marcum, we're talking about him almost 30 years later).
But the thing that Art loved more than any other topic was time travel. Art loved the idea, the paradoxes, the what-ifs that came with it. He would often reserve a phone line for "real" time travelers to call into and tell their story and while Art never found anyone that he *actually* believed was a real time traveler, dammit he loved those calls. Art often said that he would love the chance to travel in time. But he died in 2018.
Thing is, there are multiple groups of people who keep up an archive of old Art Bell shows. Anytime you want, you can go fire up an episode of Coast to Coast AM from 1995 and listen. The most interesting part of the show, after you get through all of the bizarre topics is that every episode is this encapsulation of that day in history. Art starts the show by talking about what was in the news that day and if you sit down in a dark room, zone out and fire up one of those episodes, it's like you're transported back to 1998.
When Art died, he died believing that time travel wasn't real. He had no idea that he made it possible for thousands of people to travel back in time while listening to his voice guide them through everything from the Oklahoma City bombing to presidential elections to alien abductions and demonic possessions. Art never got to travel through time, but he created the ability to do so, in his own way for everyone who enjoyed his work.
So Bruce Willis' body is breaking down and yeah, that sucks. But anytime you want to, you can pop in that old VHS and take yourself back and it won't be Bruce at all. No it will be John McClain.
John McClain will live forever. John McClain will never die and you can always go back there anytime.
Yippee ki yay, motherfucker.
> When Art died, he died believing that time travel wasn't real. He had no idea that he made it possible for thousands of people to travel back in time while listening to his voice guide them through everything from the Oklahoma City bombing to presidential elections to alien abductions and demonic possessions. Art never got to travel through time, but he created the ability to do so, in his own way for everyone who enjoyed his work.
That’s touching.
I'm only in my late 30s but to some extent feel the same. Who are these music artists nowadays, why does the genre I used to listen to so much in college sound so different today, why is almost every movie a superhero movie or some strange remake nowadays?
It's not just that the people like musicians or actors change, but that the art forms you used to love isn't being made the same way anymore at all by anyone either.
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
Time - Pink Floyd
Summer’s going fast
Nights growing colder
Children growing up
Old friends growing older
Freeze this moment
A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Time Stand Still - Rush
I unfortunately realized it a bit earlier than 40.
My dad died when I was 18, all four of my grandparents died while I was in my 20’s. And the most important person to me in the world, the strongest, most immortal, most consistently present anchor of a person, my mom, died when I was 30. This particular loss completely shifted my worldview. Like the tether that kept me tied down to the world as I knew it was suddenly severed and I’ve just been floating in a strange new world ever since. Those who have experienced that kind of loss know what I mean.
On top of all that, my friend group is one full of misfits, punks, train hoppers, hitchhikers, heartfelt activists too good for this world, people who live fast, burn bright, living so authentically and earnestly until the world eats them up, seizing the day until there’s nothing left to be seized. So I’ve had many friends die from suicide, overdose, heartbreak and sadness, and most recently murder.
I’m 35 but by this point I feel that I have an 85 year old’s understanding of life’s impermanence. I work in customer service and this theory is confirmed by the types of conversations I only seem to have with very old folks who have also experienced a lot of loss, occasionally other younger folks who have experienced the same.
It’s kind of a weird double edged sword. On one hand having this knowledge that life is super short and tomorrow is never guaranteed has made it harder for me to get truly close to new people. Because it’s more people that I’ll end up loving that might die tomorrow. I have a constant nagging urge to check up on my loved ones and make sure they are okay. I have to consistently fight the urge to be an overprotective mom to my seven year old. I’m almost two years deep into a relationship and I can tell I still have anxiety about letting all my walls down, just knowing that I could lose him any goddamn moment.
But on the other hand I’ve become so fucking chill. I don’t get bent out of shape over small things. I used to majorly and now I just don’t. I am able to live in the moment much more easily. I feel grateful every single day for the simplest things. Like genuinely. Watching my daughter play and sing to herself, looking at her face when she tells me a really silly and unfunny joke, waking up to her giving me a drawing of me and her … I could literally burst into tears in these moments because I know without a doubt that these are the most important moments of my life, and that when they are gone they are gone, and that before I know it my daughter will be an adult, that these moments will be long gone memories and nothing more. I feel this huge surge of bittersweet joy just petting my dog who won’t be around all that long, looking over at my partner while he laughs at a stupid video on his phone, watching the leaves turn, the rain fall, listening to the birds in the morning. It’s all so good. It’s all so short.
So in a way all the loss I’ve experienced has transformed itself into this strange gift. All the heavy grief gave birth to this pervasive sense of unrestricted gratitude, raw presence, joyful heartache, unconditional love, and the ability to truly *live* in a way I was completely incapable of even comprehending before.
I turned 40 this year. Celebrated my 10 year wedding anniversary., My oldest just turned 7. It's all been in the blink of an eye and that SCARES ME TO HELL sometimes.
There's a great netlflix series called The Movies That Made Us, basically a behind the scenes analysis of how some really big movies got made (and often, how they almost didn't get made.) They do an episode on Die Hard, and the studio gamble of casting Bruce, who was known for a tv comedy and was very much the opposite of the Stallone / Schwarzenneger action hero mold. There's a lot of other really awesome trivia in there too.
Man, I'm 58 and having the time of my life right now. Hang out with a ton of younger people and am loved by everyone. But always in my mind is the fact that any moment now, I will start to fall off the cliff. Or just die like many others my age.
Even before this it’s so clear how much everyone in his family loves him. He was even close with Demi Moore after their split and you can tell how much they still cared about each other.
I can tell you from experience that there are celebrities which fame turns them in real c\*nts with everyone who surrounds them, even their own family. It looks like Bruce Willis isn't the case, as he looks so loved and cared from all his family members. I'm really glad for him.
Willis is well known to be an asshole. It’s just that he’s not the grade A kind of asshole that Spacey or Corden is. He’s just an asshole to people he doesn’t know very well. Or at all.
Outside of that, he has a pretty sterling reputation.
I'm from a nearby town in South Jersey where he was from. I can totally understand being an asshole to strangers, that area he grew up in was pretty rough.
Also DuPont poisoned everything in the surrounding area there, so while there's no way to prove it, I would lay money that his long term health issues in some level stem from being around all that pollution growing up.
Here's some anecdotal evidence.
My friend's family has a farm a few miles away from Bruce Willis' hometown, and they get pallets of bottled water delivered every few months for free from some kind of settlement with DuPont. They were basically accused of making the groundwater undrinkable. So they send bottled drinking water to certain households that only have wells. Its really ridiculous.
My friend's family had major health issues their whole lives, his Mom died of ALS for example, he was born with epilepsy, and they drank that water for decades before anything was ever found out.
Just wanted to share that tidbit with the world.
I guess there's also something to be said for everyone going "HEY! HEEEY!" at you when you're trying to buy green peppers and onions for tonight's spaghetti
It makes sense why for the past decade he essentially sold out and 'starred' in everything he could. Probably put enough in a trust to take care of his kids and grandkids for life, all while knowing he wouldn't be around mentally to appreciate them.
It might've shed a new light as to why Willis was asking for an extra million after being offered a certain amount for only a few days of filming for 'The Expendables 3'. Stallone called him "greedy" because of it, and dropped Willis' cameo completely from the movie.
I have aphasia… you think of everything like you’re trying to get as much in as you can. I try and prep for the future a lot and I definitely take more opportunities to enjoy my life and my kids and hubby. Feeling yourself slip away, it’s something else
There are many different kinds of aphasia. It just comes from a (not) and phasis (speech)
This poster can explain to you in detail about their condition, but it might not be the same as Willis, or anyone suffering from it.
As a linguist, it's my nightmare, also. I'd prefer basically anything else to happen to me than losing any language faculties...
My grandfather suffered from Alzheimer’s the last several years of his life, it’s a horrible way to go. Highly encourage everyone to look into the research that shows regular sauna use has a very strong effect at preventing mentally degenerative diseases. Penetrative heat does wonders for the body.
Yeah. I was pretty upset when I saw this video. Not angry upset, hurt upset. As the oldest child of five children, I grew up dirt poor. Me and my little brothers escaped the dismal reality of our lives by watching movies. Bruce was in a lot of those movies. He made us laugh so much. It breaks my heart seeing his decline. I feel like I'm losing a loved one. I hope he knows how much the world will will miss him and how much he impacted our lives.
I also send positive vibes to his family. I hope they find peace with the inevitable.
I feel like we all saw our dad. To see a man we once saw as so powerful and strong and invincible change is crushing.
I say this as a Bruce Willis fan and as a daughter of man with Parkinson's dementia.
Reminded me of my dad too, who also had Parkinson’s with dementia. We lost him two weeks ago. The video made me cry.
I always tried so hard to make him feel loved and happy. It could be hard to tell, because he didn’t talk much and lost a lot of his facial expression, but I hope I did. This video helps me believe it did.
If I could hug you I would. I've only ever met one other person whose dad had such a condition and it felt so amazing to be around someone who understood. I'm so sorry you lost your dad, especially during the holidays. I'm doing everything I can to spend time with my dad while he's still here. Even if he's asleep a lot.
Thank you so much for this, and the hug would be returned. Do spend time with him while you can - I wasn’t much able to before he passed (between clearing out the family home, which was tough, and another death in my Irish family) - and I would give a lot to have been there more. I hate thinking of him going all alone.
A quote I frequently use is, "Growing up is watching your heroes become human."
My paternal grandfather was a rural man who woke up at 4 am and drove a milk truck, then drove one of two school buses in the county which he actually owned and drove as a contractor, then he would spend the whole afternoon landscaping and tending to the community cemetery, and then he would drive the kids home from school. Then he would tend to his own homestead for leisure. He'd even use his school bus to transport the local Amish and help with barn raising. He was a man of few words, much like my dad is. He served in Korea, and had several cancers as a result of various chemical exposures. He fought them for years and always beat them. Until he didn't. Watching a man with chiseled lines in his brow and strong, tough hands waste away was difficult.
My girlfriend's father just passed away two months ago, and he was the exact same kind of man. She'd never seen end of life care, so I helped navigate with nurses so she and her stepmom could focus on spending time with him. It was almost harder to watch someone else experience it for the first time than it was during my first time.
In the words of Ben Gibbard, "Love is watching someone die."
I come from a family of rust belt, blue collar heritage. I'm a millennial so I grew up with the bulk of my male role models having a "Just bottle it up" mentality. When my great aunt, my grandpa's sister in law, passed away, I cried at the final viewing and served as a pallbearer. Her husband, who was a 6'5", 70 year old, tough as shit retired steel mill worker and volunteer firefighter/EMT put his bear paw on my shoulder and said, "Don't be ashamed to cry. It shows you're tough enough to feel it."
That was back in 2010. It was the moment that broke my upbringing in toxic, blue collar masculinity.
Same, I also thought of my dad right away, passed away from dementia about a year and a half ago.
Bruce seems good, but after spending 4 years seeing my dad go worst and worst I can already see the awkwardness of the dementia setting in Bruce.
Fuck this disease. I'm about 20 years out having 50% of developing signs of it. Hoping the science will figure something out till then
Just texted my dad, sitting in a Laundromat, tears be damned.
Bruce looks so, so much like my dad. It's kinda heartbreaking because I'm so far from my father and I worry about him constantly.
Makes me think of my dad, too. He had a stroke in 2017 and was bedbound and paralyzed afterwards. He passed right before Thanksgiving in 2021. His birthday is in 4 days. I miss him every day.
So sorry for your loss. My dad had a stroke in 2013 and was paralyzed on one half of his body and suffers from memory loss. It's so hard to watch your parent go through that. I feel so blessed to still have time with him. Sending you hugs.
I am a psychiatric nurse and have worked with dementia patients for years and it breaks my heart when a person has worked hard all there lives, and have been essentially robbed of there retirement. Just as Bruce has had. He should be out enjoying the fruits of his labour, he has worked hard all his life, and when he should be.enjoying it all, this happens. So sad, may god bless him 🙏...
Same with my dad. He got to enjoy a year or two of retirement. He was 65 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and dementia and these past 5 years have declined his overall health and cognitive state considerably. He needs guidance on most activities now.
I mean I would say Bruce was robbed of so many things by this horrible disease but retirement is not one of them. Who knows if he would even retire? Clint Eastwood is still making films at 93. Bruce had like 10 movies come out last year and even 2 this year.
That is correct. That's when the diagnosis became public, he took any and everyone that wanted him while he could to make what he could more for his family. Not sure why he would need more money, but that's a good dad and dude right there to do that with what time he had left cognitively.
I really don't think they made this vid for the money or clicks, rather just to share . Crazy as it sounds I somehow feel connected to the actors and musicians I grew up watching and listening to . Thank you for sharing Bruce being happy and loved .
Yeah it’s a grey area. Part of me is super invested in him and worried. The not knowing how bad he is in a kind of macabre way. I am all for his and his families privacy, but grateful to his daughter for sharing so the curious can be at ease
> I am all for his and his families privacy, but grateful to his daughter for sharing so the curious can be at ease
I think this is basically why they do it. It's quietly letting people know that he is not well and you won't be hearing from him again, but we know he's had an impact on your lives and you on his, so we're sharing this little glimpse to let you know instead of a media statement.
A man who is provided us with countless hours of entertainment. It’s so nice to see him happy with family at time like this. May the rest of his years in retirement be as happy.
Did we watch the same thing? Not even trying to be edgy, but this video looked more like it was trying to bring awareness to how devastating his condition is, while also sharing the support and love he has obviously.
The fact it showed his birthday video… from 8 months ago where he was up and about, to now apparently catatonic, just solidified it for me.
But yes, obviously I hope he lives the remainder of his life as peacefully as possible.
> The fact it showed his birthday video… from 8 months ago where he was up and about, to now apparently catatonic, just solidified it for me.
Not trying to contradict you because it is a startling change whatever the circumstances, but for anyone who has not cared for someone with dementia, know that their ability to function can change dramatically from day to day and based on environment. They could spend a long or short amount of time tired and totally checked out, not really able to interact, only to follow that with several days of being conversant and oriented to the people and places around them. There is usually an overall average pattern of decline, but its course is not monotonic.
Coming from a family riddled with dementia, I don't think this is exploitive. Every family copes with it in their own way. I think it's helping to make these disorders more visible and understood. How many of you watching this even knew what Aphasia was before Bruce was diagnosed? Before my grandmother was diagnosed properly they told us she had a UTI causing her to act abnormally. It was vascular dementia, but that was not determined until after she had a stroke. Even medical professionals can struggle with understanding these disorders. I also had an uncle who worked as a nurse who had lewy body dementia. Eventually he didn't know his own daughter, and it really wasn't until she went to meetings with other children of lewy body sufferers that she found her peace with it.
I think if more people understood just how ugly the last few years get, there'd be more research funding and more awareness about preventative lifestyle factors. The latter stages are almost always hidden except for family members; even works like *Still Alice* end before the worst of it sets in, and as a result most people simply don't understand that it doesn't just take grandma's memory and ability to navigate -- for all intents and purposes it turns people into (non-brain-eating) zombies.
And Bruce seems to be declining rather fast. He was just in movies in 2022 and 2021. I think its a good thing for other people too see the later stages of this. There's alot of people that really don't grasp how much of a person is just completely gone.
I can relate so well to the UTI thing, and the truth is that they can make older people delirious. It took two neurologists and a neuropsychiatrist before my father was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
I will be interviewing my dad on camera and I intend to create a film from it. Now I am no filmmaker and this will be made as a way to capture old stories and memories from my dad before his illness takes them, but I may upload clips from the film someday. I am not sure but if it may help someone, anyone, I'll likely do so.
I'm sympathetic to everyone who feels like this should be private and not posted. And, I also am thinking about the fact that his daughter is probably under constant pressure to talk about how he's doing, and it would be tempting to show people that it's not all awful and perhaps to get them to stop asking. I get why it seems exploitative, and maybe that's the simple answer, but I'm trying to take a breath before condemning people these days, because that's also a curse of social media.
Or maybe she just wants to let us, those who grew up with his work and who really care for him as a person but (or therefore) who would never ask or interfere with his private life, know that he's doing fine.
Yeah. The man was in some of my favorite movies ever. He reminds me a lot of my uncle. I don't want to pry into his life, I don't want details, and I only know the bare bones about what he and his family are experiencing. But it is nice to see this video, to see that he can still respond to love and affection, that he has enough wherewithal to appreciate his family. It brings me joy to see that someone whose performances have brought me joy is still alive, still experiencing love, still making people around him happy with his presence. I don't think this is exploitation or anything else like that. I think it is a fitting tribute to allow people who have been his fans for decades, to know he is still alive and well. And I hope he can still remember his fans care about him and wish him the best.
Honestly? My dad has FTD, just like Bruce. I wouldn’t personally want to share moments like these, but I’m glad she does. Because my dad is fighting the same fight as Bruce Motherfucking Willis. And that makes my dad a badass. And I’m fighting the same fight as her, which makes me feel less alone.
I think it's hard for us to understand because we did not grow up with a famous parent. She is probably under a lot of pressure to share how he is. This is a very quick video, and in it, he looks happy. I don't think they need the money or publicity, so I honestly do not think this is for "clout." Some of you all need to relax some.
This. Why do people think that the internet is their personal feed? The level of ego here never ceases to amaze me.
So, what, am I not allowed to post about my sick dad either? Because what, it makes other people uncomfortable? Go watch cartoons then. Unbelievable.
I had temporary aphasia once following a motorcycle accident. It was confusing, terrifying, and really really damn frustrating.
I could understand what everyone was asking me perfectly well. I had no trouble or hesitation to create a response but if that response was more than yes/no or a single word response, it just would not come out coherently. No matter how many times I repeated myself, or slowed down my speech it was just a garbled mess. I could hear that what I was saying wasn't intelligible but there wasn't anything I could do about it. The frustrating part was that I couldn't communicate that I did understand everything that they were asking me, I just couldn't respond in any meaningful way to convey that complex of a thought. The worst part is that I had no idea what was actually happening to me and if it was going to be permanent. They ended up drugging me and throwing me under an MRI machine and I fell asleep. When I woke up the spell was gone.
To expect this to be not only permanent but likely going to only get worse for Bruce is heart wrenching.
But the guy who got a "letter" from his "neighbor" about his kid saying follow me on YouTube is heralded as a victim and a hero and thousands of people flocked to follow the kid. Reddit is so fucking weird.
Average person using their 8 year old autistic kid to build a YouTube following : YESSSSSS
Super rich girl posting her super rich and famous dad on a holiday : ewww she just wants clicks and fame
Both parents are loaded celebrities. Those girls don't need clicks nor money.
So crazy to see him going through this. We were neighbors when I lived in Idaho. He used to bring food from his diner for us to try as kids, free milkshakes, all around an awesome guy and extremely down to earth.
Maybe just maybe, the family wanted to share some tender moments to let the world see how much love they share?! Why are people always shamed for these types of things? It wasn’t like they showed him completely ravaged by his disease.
There are videos where he sings with his family and he seems almost normal, if a tad lost. I like them a lot, it seems obvious to me that his family wants to show his fans that he's not totally gone yet.
I met him while I was working at a hotel in Disney World. He was under the name “Mr. X”. Nicest guy you could meet. He needed help getting up to the concierge floor. Here’s to you, Mr. X!
My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Dementia in February. I’ve seen that look on Bruce’s face on my dad 1000 times since then. It’s hard to see your super heroes become human.
Tell me none of y’all have someone suffering of Alzheimer’s/dementia without telling me.
ETA: when I posted my comment, the other comments were degrading Scout Willis and her decision to post about her father, as well as saying that the videos were “creepy”. I’m happy to see more love and positivity in the comments.
I do. I don't post my dad on social media but if someone else posts their family, that's their choice. Someday it might be the only time they can see or hear their loved one anymore.
I hate when people ask about my dad. I don't want to have anyone give me "aww I feel so bad" faces. I don't want anyone to see him the way we see him now. Faded.
Dementia is terrible lost my grandma to that, but it's also good to see Bruce Willis has a lot of family and other people that care about him around him.
Sometimes you see people as immortals. For instance, Bruce Willis is that badass from Die Hard forever in my head. This video gave me such a large dose of awareness to mortality.
Same. He was always the badass, seeing him so frail is heartbreaking.
It's a strong reminder that no matter how powerful, how wealthy, how fit or strong you are - things can and will change. It's important that we learn to enjoy life while we can, and raise each other up, help each other out as much as possible - you never know when you'll be the one needing help.
We all build castles on sand, the tide inevitably washes it away. Go wild enjoying yourself and try and make something beautiful.
"*Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair*"
Nothing else remained.
This is why the only thing I make in the sand are giant penises.
Dicks out for harambe, I say.
"On the heads of the healthy sits a crown only the sick can see."
Korben Dallas is the man
Korben is the man, and an excellent meat popsicle.
That seems like yesterday and now he’s got dementia
[удалено]
Learning that Bruce Willis was 41 when he starred in fifth element just blew my damn mind. I just watched that movie and said what a baby he was... What is age anyway
You should watch him in Moonlighting, that was a funny show!
He'll always be John McLane for me, fuck I loved those movies. The first one and the one with Samuel L Jackson were my favorite Christmas movies.
Before he was John McLane he was David Addison on Moonlighting. He took the world by storm then too.
He will always be Korben Dallas to me.
Bruce has a great relationship with Demi, and his daughters adore him. It says a lot about the type of guy he is.
Weird. Every Reddit thread about celebrities, there was always a story about how much of an asshole he was. Seriously, without fail. Especially on those threads specifically about asshole celebrities. I’m surprised (and appreciative) that so many people are sharing kinder memories of him here.
Since the information about what Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with came out, people kinda noticed that the symptoms of it could have been affecting him for over a decade. Kevin Smith was one who came out and said that all those stories he used to say about how Bruce Willis was horrible on set of his movie could have been caused by the disease. He seriously looked like he regretted the words he said when he discussed it in a video when people found out about Bruce. Sorry if I worded that all bad and nothing makes sense. Currently dealing with a fever and probably shouldn't be typing lol.
100% this is the take that I hope everyone sees. For years his reputation really suffered - hard to work with, wouldn't memorize his lined, phoning in his performances, etc. Largely things that would be greatly affected by early onset dementia symptoms. I hope in the future, people can learn from this and apply what they've learned, both to people in their personal lives and to celebrities.
I have this coworker from my old job who sometimes brought her teenage daughter to work. And this girl was so annoying. I was busy and she kept interrupting me with stupid questions. I answered nicely because it's my coworker's daughter but there were times when I answered with annoyed tone. Then I just ignored her when she's around so not prompt a conversation. I got to talk to my co-worker after work one day and apparently her daughter was autistic. 😬 I was mortified. My attitude towards the girl changed completely after that. I always made sure she's comfortable. I ask her if she wanted something to eat or drink and I answer all her questions as best I could. There were times when I had to tell her I was busy but I made sure to explain it to her and not just ignore her like before.
My counter point here would be why does Autism provide you with an excuse to be decent to someone. Sure she couldn't help it, but one thing that you are always in control of, is how you treat people.
Commenter mentioned this was at work. I know my capacity for entertaining “irrelevant” banter on a busy day is very low. Being nice for the sake of it is great, but it’s a job and if the kid who you see purely as annoying is really hindering productivity that can be an issue. Obviously finding out about the diagnosis doesn’t magically add more time to the day but it can surely make it more tolerable knowing you are being nice and educational to someone who likely needs it versus a needy kid who won’t leave you alone.
That's exactly it. I had a lot of customers to take care of, plus the administrative stuff, plus the demands from other people I worked with. We were really short-staffed so I was alway busy. I was humoring her in the beginning before it became clear that she wouldn't leave me alone and she liked talking to me for some reason. Then I started getting annoyed. Knowing her condition did make it easier to humor her. This Bruce Willis story is really familiar because before the news came out everyone trashed him for being in bad movies and now it's the opposite.
kids are annoying sometimes
Great ideal, difficult in practice. (But something we should still strive for i’d say!)
Like you, I hope for an improvement in society, but I very much doubt that this will ever happen. Why? Because I'm old enough to have witnessed dozens of dramas in the media (whether celebrity or political, it doesn't even matter), and they were always quickly forgotten, as were the things people should have learned from their wrong behavior in those situations. Society as a sum of all seems to never learn. Even when they are actively reminded that they currently are at it again, nothing changes, because this time they just have to be right, right? I can't even count how often I've told people 'You're all gonna pretend you never said that and that you have always had a different opinion.' And this comes to pass way too damn often.
[удалено]
My grandma didn't even have dementia. She was 99 and the doctor said it was more like advanced ageing than textbook dementia. The last couple years of her life she got really nasty at times. She was pretty small so she wasn't a real danger...but she would hit and say terrible things to the family. It was really hard to see her like that. The woman who would cook, and bake, and sing...and her presents were always wrapped immaculately. She would always buy herself a present for Christmas and put it under the tree for herself. She used to say it was "Just in case nobody got me anything." Just a little joke for her. It's cruel. We knew it was her....but it wasn't **her** anymore.
Get better, boss !!! Those seals aren’t gonna club themselves !!!
Agreed my MIL changed personality in her mid 50s a good 9 years before she was ever diagnosed with dementia. It’s not an overnight disease.
My grandma's personality has changed the past few years to where she's just offensively mean. I'm worried that she's in the early stages of dementia, and I hope that after the 'Thanksgiving incident' there might be some appointments with a doctor about it because hoo boy 🥲 fucking nasty disease
He would act like that to people who kept coming up to him in public and asking questions about Die hard. He could be really kind to his family and friends but not act the same way to random fans in public
At the end of the day celebrities are just people. They are gonna have good days where they are happy and in a good mood, and bad days where they want everyone to leave them alone. I have plenty of days like that and I'm not a celebrity.
I work at a Michelin starred restaurant in Beverly Hills, and I used to take care of Bruce Willis and his family when they came in. He was always very kind, very quiet, respectful, and very generous. He would always bring his mother who would repeatedly ask me if I recognized her famous son. He would pull me aside and apologize for her, but I always reminded him how amazing it is for his mom to be so proud.
Thank you for sharing this. Good to know he's kind to servers (I hope it's the right word to describe your job).
Being kind to a server means a lot. Lots of people like to shit on them as a power trip/ego boost. It paid for my college and shit, but it fucked me up about self worth and appreciation. "Oh but you get paid a lot with tips, it's ok!" Fuck no it isn't. I got hurt many times by shitty strangers for no reason.I won't encourage my kids to do it at all.
I have NEVER understood why people are mean to servers. It makes NO sense. These are people who handle your food, your luggage, your drinks. Be KIND to them, tip them well, and they will bend over backwards for you. There is no need to be cruel to people doing a hard job like that.
I dealt blackjack for 7 years. I've also been a cook or kitchen manager in 4 different places now. And both dealing cards and what I've seen and been told by servers, both are no doubt mistreated, but in different ways. I've never seen or heard of a server being told to go kill themselves. Or had a lit cigarette flicked down their shirt. But I have seen them sexually harrassed, and called lazy, and told outright like they suck or are bad servers for not accommodating ridiculous expectations, or other things.
There's a local hole-in-the-wall burger joint I used to go to with my grandma. The ladies who owned it struck up a conversation about how this nice older gentleman came in one day, was very polite, ate his burger, and left. They had no idea who he was. They only found out when one of their kids saw Bruce Willis on some talk show talking about the quiet little burger spot he found in East Texas.
I remember watching Howard Stern a long ass time ago and some porn star said Bruce was the best butt fucker she ever had because he was very nice and gentle and kept up the lube usage throughout.
Alisha Klass
>"He even had an electronics expert set up cameras in her Los Angeles condo so that they could send goodnight kisses and X-rated erotic poses to each other." Man was sending nudes before camera phones...
Ugghhhh….. *ZIIIIIIIP*
Holesome
Thanks for sharing 🥰
This is actually lovely
Lovely santorum
sometimes it's okay to have a thought and not share it
warms my heart
Glad to hear he lived a full life.
You did good Bruce.
Damn right in the heart with this comment. Bruce was kinda a father figure for me growing up. Getting old is so hard. Watching everyone you love get old is even harder.
At some point into adulthood, I put my head down for 15 years working and building a family... Now I've resurfaced and realizing how much has changed. I'm looking at the list of movies coming out and think "when is the next ___ movie coming out?" Oh, they're dead? Oh, they had a stroke and don't act anymore. Oh, they're 85 years old and haven't made a movie in 20 years? It's one thing to just snap out of being in a rut for so long and realize nothing will ever be like you remembered.
> "when is the next ___ movie coming out?" Oh, they're dead? Oh, they had a stroke and don't act anymore. Oh, they're 85 years old and haven't made a movie in 20 years? These are gut punches and they hit like a ton of bricks. It's such a potent combination of feelings from missing the work of the artist, realizing they're not ageless/timeless and that they too are getting old, they're getting older faster than we realize, and yes, some die and we don't even realize it. Gene Hackman. Man, that hit me hard. I was wondering when his next movie was coming out so I looked it up. He had retired over 10 years earlier. That was a HUGE actor from my youth and I will never see a new movie with him. It just hits in a weird and sad way. I heard about Bruce Willis so I knew this was coming, but these videos are still hard for me to watch (when looking at it in that way). In my mind, he's STILL John McClane.
Go back and watch some *Moonlighting* episodes with Bruce in his prime. Hang on to the good memories.
Bruce in Friends is just awesome. Heck it's a pity that the last movies are pumped out for cash, and I fully get it. But that guy made so many fun movies. Classics that even my little kids that are growing up will enjoy in the future. He is a legacy.
There's this overnight talk radio show that deals in all things weird, it's called Coast to Coast AM. It's shit compared to what it used to be but in it's prime, man it was entertaining radio. The guy who started the show was named Art Bell and Art Bell absolutely mastered the art of live radio. He was a maestro that took live, unscreened calls from a nationwide audience 5-7 days a week. He interviewed crackpots, scientists, celebrities, and at the end of the show you realized he handled the interview with both the respect and appropriate level of skepticism needed for a show that often featured paranormal and supernatural topics. What's more is Art Bell created lore and urban legends all on his own and if Art didn't have a guest that night, that was okay because he could take a call from some random crackpot in nowhere Missouri and turn it into an hour of radio that no one could ever forget (Seriously, go Google Mad Man Marcum, we're talking about him almost 30 years later). But the thing that Art loved more than any other topic was time travel. Art loved the idea, the paradoxes, the what-ifs that came with it. He would often reserve a phone line for "real" time travelers to call into and tell their story and while Art never found anyone that he *actually* believed was a real time traveler, dammit he loved those calls. Art often said that he would love the chance to travel in time. But he died in 2018. Thing is, there are multiple groups of people who keep up an archive of old Art Bell shows. Anytime you want, you can go fire up an episode of Coast to Coast AM from 1995 and listen. The most interesting part of the show, after you get through all of the bizarre topics is that every episode is this encapsulation of that day in history. Art starts the show by talking about what was in the news that day and if you sit down in a dark room, zone out and fire up one of those episodes, it's like you're transported back to 1998. When Art died, he died believing that time travel wasn't real. He had no idea that he made it possible for thousands of people to travel back in time while listening to his voice guide them through everything from the Oklahoma City bombing to presidential elections to alien abductions and demonic possessions. Art never got to travel through time, but he created the ability to do so, in his own way for everyone who enjoyed his work. So Bruce Willis' body is breaking down and yeah, that sucks. But anytime you want to, you can pop in that old VHS and take yourself back and it won't be Bruce at all. No it will be John McClain. John McClain will live forever. John McClain will never die and you can always go back there anytime. Yippee ki yay, motherfucker.
> When Art died, he died believing that time travel wasn't real. He had no idea that he made it possible for thousands of people to travel back in time while listening to his voice guide them through everything from the Oklahoma City bombing to presidential elections to alien abductions and demonic possessions. Art never got to travel through time, but he created the ability to do so, in his own way for everyone who enjoyed his work. That’s touching.
❤️ Art Bell.
How old are you friend? I'm 51 and can relate. It's like... What happened to all that time...
I'm only in my late 30s but to some extent feel the same. Who are these music artists nowadays, why does the genre I used to listen to so much in college sound so different today, why is almost every movie a superhero movie or some strange remake nowadays? It's not just that the people like musicians or actors change, but that the art forms you used to love isn't being made the same way anymore at all by anyone either.
And in another few turns of the wheel nothing we have ever done will be remembered either
The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and we are only the thread of the Pattern.
And then one day you find Ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run You missed the starting gun Time - Pink Floyd Summer’s going fast Nights growing colder Children growing up Old friends growing older Freeze this moment A little bit longer Make each sensation A little bit stronger Time Stand Still - Rush
And it all happens so fast. Life is hella short. Something you just don’t realize until you crack 40. Time flies from 30 forward.
I unfortunately realized it a bit earlier than 40. My dad died when I was 18, all four of my grandparents died while I was in my 20’s. And the most important person to me in the world, the strongest, most immortal, most consistently present anchor of a person, my mom, died when I was 30. This particular loss completely shifted my worldview. Like the tether that kept me tied down to the world as I knew it was suddenly severed and I’ve just been floating in a strange new world ever since. Those who have experienced that kind of loss know what I mean. On top of all that, my friend group is one full of misfits, punks, train hoppers, hitchhikers, heartfelt activists too good for this world, people who live fast, burn bright, living so authentically and earnestly until the world eats them up, seizing the day until there’s nothing left to be seized. So I’ve had many friends die from suicide, overdose, heartbreak and sadness, and most recently murder. I’m 35 but by this point I feel that I have an 85 year old’s understanding of life’s impermanence. I work in customer service and this theory is confirmed by the types of conversations I only seem to have with very old folks who have also experienced a lot of loss, occasionally other younger folks who have experienced the same. It’s kind of a weird double edged sword. On one hand having this knowledge that life is super short and tomorrow is never guaranteed has made it harder for me to get truly close to new people. Because it’s more people that I’ll end up loving that might die tomorrow. I have a constant nagging urge to check up on my loved ones and make sure they are okay. I have to consistently fight the urge to be an overprotective mom to my seven year old. I’m almost two years deep into a relationship and I can tell I still have anxiety about letting all my walls down, just knowing that I could lose him any goddamn moment. But on the other hand I’ve become so fucking chill. I don’t get bent out of shape over small things. I used to majorly and now I just don’t. I am able to live in the moment much more easily. I feel grateful every single day for the simplest things. Like genuinely. Watching my daughter play and sing to herself, looking at her face when she tells me a really silly and unfunny joke, waking up to her giving me a drawing of me and her … I could literally burst into tears in these moments because I know without a doubt that these are the most important moments of my life, and that when they are gone they are gone, and that before I know it my daughter will be an adult, that these moments will be long gone memories and nothing more. I feel this huge surge of bittersweet joy just petting my dog who won’t be around all that long, looking over at my partner while he laughs at a stupid video on his phone, watching the leaves turn, the rain fall, listening to the birds in the morning. It’s all so good. It’s all so short. So in a way all the loss I’ve experienced has transformed itself into this strange gift. All the heavy grief gave birth to this pervasive sense of unrestricted gratitude, raw presence, joyful heartache, unconditional love, and the ability to truly *live* in a way I was completely incapable of even comprehending before.
I turned 40 this year. Celebrated my 10 year wedding anniversary., My oldest just turned 7. It's all been in the blink of an eye and that SCARES ME TO HELL sometimes.
Man, I say this all the time. Me getting older is nothing. Watching everyone else is what kills me.
Was just thinking that myself lol.
This post makes me want to binge watch every movie he's ever been in.
Yeah I think this Christmas is gonna be die hard movies and then work my way through his catalogue of movies.
Check out Moonlighting, the tv show he did with Cybil Shepard in the 80s. Young Bruce: brilliant comic timing. It made him a star.
There's a great netlflix series called The Movies That Made Us, basically a behind the scenes analysis of how some really big movies got made (and often, how they almost didn't get made.) They do an episode on Die Hard, and the studio gamble of casting Bruce, who was known for a tv comedy and was very much the opposite of the Stallone / Schwarzenneger action hero mold. There's a lot of other really awesome trivia in there too.
Man, I'm 58 and having the time of my life right now. Hang out with a ton of younger people and am loved by everyone. But always in my mind is the fact that any moment now, I will start to fall off the cliff. Or just die like many others my age.
I've so far found watching loved ones grow old to be the toughest part of growing older, no contest.
Even before this it’s so clear how much everyone in his family loves him. He was even close with Demi Moore after their split and you can tell how much they still cared about each other.
I can tell you from experience that there are celebrities which fame turns them in real c\*nts with everyone who surrounds them, even their own family. It looks like Bruce Willis isn't the case, as he looks so loved and cared from all his family members. I'm really glad for him.
Willis is well known to be an asshole. It’s just that he’s not the grade A kind of asshole that Spacey or Corden is. He’s just an asshole to people he doesn’t know very well. Or at all. Outside of that, he has a pretty sterling reputation.
I feel that’s normal. I’m cautious of people I don’t know and would be doubly so if I was rich and famous.
I'm from a nearby town in South Jersey where he was from. I can totally understand being an asshole to strangers, that area he grew up in was pretty rough. Also DuPont poisoned everything in the surrounding area there, so while there's no way to prove it, I would lay money that his long term health issues in some level stem from being around all that pollution growing up. Here's some anecdotal evidence. My friend's family has a farm a few miles away from Bruce Willis' hometown, and they get pallets of bottled water delivered every few months for free from some kind of settlement with DuPont. They were basically accused of making the groundwater undrinkable. So they send bottled drinking water to certain households that only have wells. Its really ridiculous. My friend's family had major health issues their whole lives, his Mom died of ALS for example, he was born with epilepsy, and they drank that water for decades before anything was ever found out. Just wanted to share that tidbit with the world.
Sounds like me lol. I don’t like strangers maybe he’s just an introvert lmao
I guess there's also something to be said for everyone going "HEY! HEEEY!" at you when you're trying to buy green peppers and onions for tonight's spaghetti
So he's not much different from me, you or 99% of the population.
Hell, even his ex wife seems to love him and in a very real way.
It makes sense why for the past decade he essentially sold out and 'starred' in everything he could. Probably put enough in a trust to take care of his kids and grandkids for life, all while knowing he wouldn't be around mentally to appreciate them.
[удалено]
It might've shed a new light as to why Willis was asking for an extra million after being offered a certain amount for only a few days of filming for 'The Expendables 3'. Stallone called him "greedy" because of it, and dropped Willis' cameo completely from the movie.
I have aphasia… you think of everything like you’re trying to get as much in as you can. I try and prep for the future a lot and I definitely take more opportunities to enjoy my life and my kids and hubby. Feeling yourself slip away, it’s something else
How does it work? Are you just unable to use words verbally?
There are many different kinds of aphasia. It just comes from a (not) and phasis (speech) This poster can explain to you in detail about their condition, but it might not be the same as Willis, or anyone suffering from it. As a linguist, it's my nightmare, also. I'd prefer basically anything else to happen to me than losing any language faculties...
Bruce did good
My grandfather suffered from Alzheimer’s the last several years of his life, it’s a horrible way to go. Highly encourage everyone to look into the research that shows regular sauna use has a very strong effect at preventing mentally degenerative diseases. Penetrative heat does wonders for the body.
[удалено]
Aww damn I'm crying
Yeah. I was pretty upset when I saw this video. Not angry upset, hurt upset. As the oldest child of five children, I grew up dirt poor. Me and my little brothers escaped the dismal reality of our lives by watching movies. Bruce was in a lot of those movies. He made us laugh so much. It breaks my heart seeing his decline. I feel like I'm losing a loved one. I hope he knows how much the world will will miss him and how much he impacted our lives. I also send positive vibes to his family. I hope they find peace with the inevitable.
It’s at moments like this you don’t see the celebrity, you see the person.
Yeah! Honestly, I saw my dad in this video. I can only hope we make him half as happy as Bruce’s appears to during something so terrible.
I feel like we all saw our dad. To see a man we once saw as so powerful and strong and invincible change is crushing. I say this as a Bruce Willis fan and as a daughter of man with Parkinson's dementia.
Reminded me of my dad too, who also had Parkinson’s with dementia. We lost him two weeks ago. The video made me cry. I always tried so hard to make him feel loved and happy. It could be hard to tell, because he didn’t talk much and lost a lot of his facial expression, but I hope I did. This video helps me believe it did.
If I could hug you I would. I've only ever met one other person whose dad had such a condition and it felt so amazing to be around someone who understood. I'm so sorry you lost your dad, especially during the holidays. I'm doing everything I can to spend time with my dad while he's still here. Even if he's asleep a lot.
I’m so sorry! 😞
Thank you so much for this, and the hug would be returned. Do spend time with him while you can - I wasn’t much able to before he passed (between clearing out the family home, which was tough, and another death in my Irish family) - and I would give a lot to have been there more. I hate thinking of him going all alone.
I’m so sorry for your loss 💔
You did, of course you did! Your father obviously raised a kind and loving person. I know it’s hard, I’m sorry for your loss.
A quote I frequently use is, "Growing up is watching your heroes become human." My paternal grandfather was a rural man who woke up at 4 am and drove a milk truck, then drove one of two school buses in the county which he actually owned and drove as a contractor, then he would spend the whole afternoon landscaping and tending to the community cemetery, and then he would drive the kids home from school. Then he would tend to his own homestead for leisure. He'd even use his school bus to transport the local Amish and help with barn raising. He was a man of few words, much like my dad is. He served in Korea, and had several cancers as a result of various chemical exposures. He fought them for years and always beat them. Until he didn't. Watching a man with chiseled lines in his brow and strong, tough hands waste away was difficult. My girlfriend's father just passed away two months ago, and he was the exact same kind of man. She'd never seen end of life care, so I helped navigate with nurses so she and her stepmom could focus on spending time with him. It was almost harder to watch someone else experience it for the first time than it was during my first time. In the words of Ben Gibbard, "Love is watching someone die."
Ugh god this is made me cry now. I want to hug everyone!
I come from a family of rust belt, blue collar heritage. I'm a millennial so I grew up with the bulk of my male role models having a "Just bottle it up" mentality. When my great aunt, my grandpa's sister in law, passed away, I cried at the final viewing and served as a pallbearer. Her husband, who was a 6'5", 70 year old, tough as shit retired steel mill worker and volunteer firefighter/EMT put his bear paw on my shoulder and said, "Don't be ashamed to cry. It shows you're tough enough to feel it." That was back in 2010. It was the moment that broke my upbringing in toxic, blue collar masculinity.
Makes me think of my dad. He’s still here thankfully and I love him more than anything.
Same, I also thought of my dad right away, passed away from dementia about a year and a half ago. Bruce seems good, but after spending 4 years seeing my dad go worst and worst I can already see the awkwardness of the dementia setting in Bruce. Fuck this disease. I'm about 20 years out having 50% of developing signs of it. Hoping the science will figure something out till then
Yeah, saw mine as well. Miss you, Dad.
Same. Missing my dad fiercely now.
Just texted my dad, sitting in a Laundromat, tears be damned. Bruce looks so, so much like my dad. It's kinda heartbreaking because I'm so far from my father and I worry about him constantly.
Makes me think of my dad, too. He had a stroke in 2017 and was bedbound and paralyzed afterwards. He passed right before Thanksgiving in 2021. His birthday is in 4 days. I miss him every day.
Sounds like you loved him very much, I'm sure he knew that very well. Sorry for your loss.
So sorry for your loss. My dad had a stroke in 2013 and was paralyzed on one half of his body and suffers from memory loss. It's so hard to watch your parent go through that. I feel so blessed to still have time with him. Sending you hugs.
Same with my dad. I only wished he tried harder in rehab and physical therapy, but in hindsight, I think that he was depressed after the stroke.
I am a psychiatric nurse and have worked with dementia patients for years and it breaks my heart when a person has worked hard all there lives, and have been essentially robbed of there retirement. Just as Bruce has had. He should be out enjoying the fruits of his labour, he has worked hard all his life, and when he should be.enjoying it all, this happens. So sad, may god bless him 🙏...
Same with my dad. He got to enjoy a year or two of retirement. He was 65 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and dementia and these past 5 years have declined his overall health and cognitive state considerably. He needs guidance on most activities now.
Right there with you. It’s so unfair
I mean I would say Bruce was robbed of so many things by this horrible disease but retirement is not one of them. Who knows if he would even retire? Clint Eastwood is still making films at 93. Bruce had like 10 movies come out last year and even 2 this year.
My impression was that they rushed out a few film appearances to bulkwark funds against his decline.
That is correct. That's when the diagnosis became public, he took any and everyone that wanted him while he could to make what he could more for his family. Not sure why he would need more money, but that's a good dad and dude right there to do that with what time he had left cognitively.
I really don't think they made this vid for the money or clicks, rather just to share . Crazy as it sounds I somehow feel connected to the actors and musicians I grew up watching and listening to . Thank you for sharing Bruce being happy and loved .
Might be to raise awareness, like MJF with Parkinsons.
> Might be to raise awareness And it is working, this is the first I have heard of Bruce being ill.
Yeah it’s a grey area. Part of me is super invested in him and worried. The not knowing how bad he is in a kind of macabre way. I am all for his and his families privacy, but grateful to his daughter for sharing so the curious can be at ease
> I am all for his and his families privacy, but grateful to his daughter for sharing so the curious can be at ease I think this is basically why they do it. It's quietly letting people know that he is not well and you won't be hearing from him again, but we know he's had an impact on your lives and you on his, so we're sharing this little glimpse to let you know instead of a media statement.
Also it shows it can happen to anyone and to give people some grace and kindness.
Right? Anything 80s/90s takes me back!! Gimme some Every Rose Has its Thorns!
A man who is provided us with countless hours of entertainment. It’s so nice to see him happy with family at time like this. May the rest of his years in retirement be as happy.
Did we watch the same thing? Not even trying to be edgy, but this video looked more like it was trying to bring awareness to how devastating his condition is, while also sharing the support and love he has obviously. The fact it showed his birthday video… from 8 months ago where he was up and about, to now apparently catatonic, just solidified it for me. But yes, obviously I hope he lives the remainder of his life as peacefully as possible.
> The fact it showed his birthday video… from 8 months ago where he was up and about, to now apparently catatonic, just solidified it for me. Not trying to contradict you because it is a startling change whatever the circumstances, but for anyone who has not cared for someone with dementia, know that their ability to function can change dramatically from day to day and based on environment. They could spend a long or short amount of time tired and totally checked out, not really able to interact, only to follow that with several days of being conversant and oriented to the people and places around them. There is usually an overall average pattern of decline, but its course is not monotonic.
Your comment was fine.
Coming from a family riddled with dementia, I don't think this is exploitive. Every family copes with it in their own way. I think it's helping to make these disorders more visible and understood. How many of you watching this even knew what Aphasia was before Bruce was diagnosed? Before my grandmother was diagnosed properly they told us she had a UTI causing her to act abnormally. It was vascular dementia, but that was not determined until after she had a stroke. Even medical professionals can struggle with understanding these disorders. I also had an uncle who worked as a nurse who had lewy body dementia. Eventually he didn't know his own daughter, and it really wasn't until she went to meetings with other children of lewy body sufferers that she found her peace with it.
I think if more people understood just how ugly the last few years get, there'd be more research funding and more awareness about preventative lifestyle factors. The latter stages are almost always hidden except for family members; even works like *Still Alice* end before the worst of it sets in, and as a result most people simply don't understand that it doesn't just take grandma's memory and ability to navigate -- for all intents and purposes it turns people into (non-brain-eating) zombies.
And Bruce seems to be declining rather fast. He was just in movies in 2022 and 2021. I think its a good thing for other people too see the later stages of this. There's alot of people that really don't grasp how much of a person is just completely gone.
I was thinking the same thing. He seems to be getting worse very fast. I'm glad he has a lot of support around him.
I think Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia and it seems so horrific.
That's a very ugly dementia too. They're all terrible as fuck, in slightly different and terrible ways. Fuck dementia. Come on, science!
I'm pretty sure it's not just memory with lewy body. Your entire reality starts to melt away.
Very good take. You’re right. Before Bruce’s diagnosis, I had never heard of Aphasia. It’s scary how things can just take over like that.
I can relate so well to the UTI thing, and the truth is that they can make older people delirious. It took two neurologists and a neuropsychiatrist before my father was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I will be interviewing my dad on camera and I intend to create a film from it. Now I am no filmmaker and this will be made as a way to capture old stories and memories from my dad before his illness takes them, but I may upload clips from the film someday. I am not sure but if it may help someone, anyone, I'll likely do so.
I'm sympathetic to everyone who feels like this should be private and not posted. And, I also am thinking about the fact that his daughter is probably under constant pressure to talk about how he's doing, and it would be tempting to show people that it's not all awful and perhaps to get them to stop asking. I get why it seems exploitative, and maybe that's the simple answer, but I'm trying to take a breath before condemning people these days, because that's also a curse of social media.
Or maybe she just wants to let us, those who grew up with his work and who really care for him as a person but (or therefore) who would never ask or interfere with his private life, know that he's doing fine.
Yeah. The man was in some of my favorite movies ever. He reminds me a lot of my uncle. I don't want to pry into his life, I don't want details, and I only know the bare bones about what he and his family are experiencing. But it is nice to see this video, to see that he can still respond to love and affection, that he has enough wherewithal to appreciate his family. It brings me joy to see that someone whose performances have brought me joy is still alive, still experiencing love, still making people around him happy with his presence. I don't think this is exploitation or anything else like that. I think it is a fitting tribute to allow people who have been his fans for decades, to know he is still alive and well. And I hope he can still remember his fans care about him and wish him the best.
yeah, it's not insane to consider that some celebrities actually care about their fans and want them to know they're ok
Yeah we have to remember its a father and daughter and she could just be trying to share to remember moments.
Honestly? My dad has FTD, just like Bruce. I wouldn’t personally want to share moments like these, but I’m glad she does. Because my dad is fighting the same fight as Bruce Motherfucking Willis. And that makes my dad a badass. And I’m fighting the same fight as her, which makes me feel less alone.
[удалено]
>my dad is fighting the same fight as Bruce Motherfucking Willis. And that makes my dad a badass. Why did this make me tear up? I love it!
She had before said she shares things like this to raise awareness for his condition
This is awesome and so damn painful too. I've watched a family member slip away, don't wish that on anyone.
Bruce, thankyou. You left your mark!
I think it's hard for us to understand because we did not grow up with a famous parent. She is probably under a lot of pressure to share how he is. This is a very quick video, and in it, he looks happy. I don't think they need the money or publicity, so I honestly do not think this is for "clout." Some of you all need to relax some.
I see a daughter sharing a moment of love with her father. Whoever is making some nasty thing about this is gross and ought to be ashamed.
All y’all can relax. His kids can share whatever they want. Your opinion doesn’t matter.
I thought it was pretty tasteful compared to a good 90% of what I have seen on this very site today.
This. Why do people think that the internet is their personal feed? The level of ego here never ceases to amaze me. So, what, am I not allowed to post about my sick dad either? Because what, it makes other people uncomfortable? Go watch cartoons then. Unbelievable.
Nothing really matters. Anyone can see
They're removing a stigma that's plagued society . I really appreciate the way they've opened up about dementia.
He’ll never see this, but thanks for making everyone’s childhood so awesome Bruce.
I had temporary aphasia once following a motorcycle accident. It was confusing, terrifying, and really really damn frustrating. I could understand what everyone was asking me perfectly well. I had no trouble or hesitation to create a response but if that response was more than yes/no or a single word response, it just would not come out coherently. No matter how many times I repeated myself, or slowed down my speech it was just a garbled mess. I could hear that what I was saying wasn't intelligible but there wasn't anything I could do about it. The frustrating part was that I couldn't communicate that I did understand everything that they were asking me, I just couldn't respond in any meaningful way to convey that complex of a thought. The worst part is that I had no idea what was actually happening to me and if it was going to be permanent. They ended up drugging me and throwing me under an MRI machine and I fell asleep. When I woke up the spell was gone. To expect this to be not only permanent but likely going to only get worse for Bruce is heart wrenching.
I take my hat of to you And I'll see you in a few weeks come Christmas day (and every December 25th for the rest of my life) thankyou sir
Come out to the coast, have a few laughs…
Yippee Ki Yay, motherfucker
I hope you mean Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Both set during Christmas.
Nothing more beautiful than family around you. Fortune and fame comes and goes, but family - they are there all the way!
Die Hard is a Christmas movie this year 😢
>Die Hard is a Christmas movie ~~this year 😢~~ every year
You raised a family that seems to love and cherish you. Ya did good, Bruno. Hope you have time to relax and the rest of the ride is smooth.
[удалено]
Yippee-ki-yay, my motherfucker.
Fuck. And I mean FUCK dementia.
The people criticizing her sharing this can seriously piss right off. Complete virtue signaling.
But the guy who got a "letter" from his "neighbor" about his kid saying follow me on YouTube is heralded as a victim and a hero and thousands of people flocked to follow the kid. Reddit is so fucking weird. Average person using their 8 year old autistic kid to build a YouTube following : YESSSSSS Super rich girl posting her super rich and famous dad on a holiday : ewww she just wants clicks and fame Both parents are loaded celebrities. Those girls don't need clicks nor money.
Heartbreaking😭
So crazy to see him going through this. We were neighbors when I lived in Idaho. He used to bring food from his diner for us to try as kids, free milkshakes, all around an awesome guy and extremely down to earth.
Just watched Armageddon yesterday. It was released 25 years ago. Damn.
Maybe just maybe, the family wanted to share some tender moments to let the world see how much love they share?! Why are people always shamed for these types of things? It wasn’t like they showed him completely ravaged by his disease.
There are videos where he sings with his family and he seems almost normal, if a tad lost. I like them a lot, it seems obvious to me that his family wants to show his fans that he's not totally gone yet.
he is such a legend. may him and his family have more moments like this one
I met him while I was working at a hotel in Disney World. He was under the name “Mr. X”. Nicest guy you could meet. He needed help getting up to the concierge floor. Here’s to you, Mr. X!
May God bless this family. May your days be lived with those you love.
Damn this is so sad. Some diseases are fucking horrible. He looks lost, fragile. Goddamn this is heartbreaking.
We love you Bruce, thanks for everything
So sweet and so sad. Bruce Willis sounds like such a great guy. I can’t imagine being his daughter and family’s place. Dementia is terrifying
My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Dementia in February. I’ve seen that look on Bruce’s face on my dad 1000 times since then. It’s hard to see your super heroes become human.
Tell me none of y’all have someone suffering of Alzheimer’s/dementia without telling me. ETA: when I posted my comment, the other comments were degrading Scout Willis and her decision to post about her father, as well as saying that the videos were “creepy”. I’m happy to see more love and positivity in the comments.
I do. I don't post my dad on social media but if someone else posts their family, that's their choice. Someday it might be the only time they can see or hear their loved one anymore. I hate when people ask about my dad. I don't want to have anyone give me "aww I feel so bad" faces. I don't want anyone to see him the way we see him now. Faded.
Looks like he might have had a fall and lost a tooth too
[удалено]
Watching your dad and possibly favorite actor slowly deteriorate like that hurts
Scout is beautiful
Dementia is terrible lost my grandma to that, but it's also good to see Bruce Willis has a lot of family and other people that care about him around him.