UPDATE: The rumors and speculation from earlier this month have turned out to be true. Demi Moore confirmed in the Instagram post below that Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities. He will be stepping away from his acting career.
We're very sad to hear this news, but thankful to see that Willis has the love and support of his family, not to mention millions of fans around the world.
Bruce Willis has become the object of social media ridicule over the last few years as his output shifted from Die Hard sequels and working with directors like Wes Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan, and Quentin Tarantino, to headlining countless direct-to-video action movies of questionable quality. The Razzies even gave him his own bad movie category back in 2021. Now health rumors are picking up steam that would put the change in tragic context.
According to News.com.au and the New Zealand Herald, insiders who have worked with Willis on recent films say that the 66-year old actor is battling early-onset dementia and serious memory loss, and is just trying to earn as much money as possible for his family before he is no longer able to work.
The rumors first surfaced back in January when gossip magazine OK! ran a story after an incident in a California Rite Aid made headlines. Willis was reportedly asked to leave the store for not wearing a mask. Sources, including Matt Eskandari, the director of several recent Willis movies, have begun to confirm stories about his onset struggles and the use of an earpiece to have his lines fed to him.
Still only rumors at this point. Hopefully Mr. Willis is in good health and this is all just a matter of the internet second-guessing which projects he chooses to work on.