Bruce Willis’ ‘domestic bliss’: From action star to homebody

Bruce Willis’ filmography of action films defined his as a resourceful, tough-guy in cop, crime and sci-fi classics like “Die Hard,” “The Last Boy Scout” or “Armageddon,” but in his down time, Willis, 67, has become known as a homebody who reportedly enjoys domestic bliss with second wife, Emma Heming, and their two daughters, Mabel, 9, and Evelyn, 7.

On Wednesday, Willis’ focus on family took on added poignancy because of an  announcement, coming from his family, that the actor is stepping away from his long film career because he has been diagnosed with aphasia.

Joining Heming in making this announcement was Willis’ first wife, actor Demi Moore, and their three adult daughters, Rumer, 33, Scout, 30, and Tallulah, 28. More than 20 years ago, Willis and Moore set the template for friendly Hollywood exes, becoming role models for being public about how they blended families and welcomed new partners into the mix.

Indeed, during the first months of the COVID pandemic in 2020, Moore, Willis and Heming made headlines by combining their households and offspring and sheltering in place together in Willis and Moore’s former family home in Idaho. Members of the clan delighted fans by posting social media images of them all together, doing their best to enjoy a quarantine version of domestic bliss.

Exes Demi Moore and Bruce Willis quarantine with kids in matching pajamas https://t.co/HWXslSjCgI pic.twitter.com/ym7jFQqFV7

— Page Six (@PageSix) April 7, 2020

In Wednesday’s announcement, signed by “Emma, Demi, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel and Evelyn,” the family said: “To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities.”

After saying that Willis was stepping away “from the career that has meant so much to him,” his wives and daughters also brought things back to the family by saying that “this is a really challenging time for our family …  We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him.”

For Willis fans who have followed the ups and downs of his career and personal life, they would know about how those strong those family bonds.

It’s not known how or why Willis developed aphasia, which can rob a person of the ability to communicate through speech or to write or understand language, according to the Mayo Clinic. The most common cause is brain damage resulting from a stroke, but aphasia also be caused by a severe head injury, tumor, infection or degenerative process.

It’s also not known when Willis began to show symptoms. On March 20, videos posted to Willis’ Instagram account showed him celebrating his birthday by blowing out the candles of a birthday cake and hugging and dancing with one of his younger daughters. A video also showed him playing with two younger family members, who are giggling with delight, as he shouts: “Run, run for your life.”

The day before, Moore wished her ex-husband a happy birthday on Instagram, sharing what looked like a recent photo of them posed together smiling in a kitchen.

“Happy birthday, Bruce! Thankful for our blended family,” wrote Moore, who was married to Willis from 1987 to 2000.

In recent months, Heming, who married Willis in 2009, also has kept her Instagram page filled with photos and videos of Willis in happy family moments. They include a video of Willis watching as their daughter Mabel jumped into a river in July and of him in December, when he hugged their daughter, Evelyn, as she was learning to ski.

Around Thanksgiving, Heming shared a photo of her, Willis and their daughters, bundled up in winter clothes and enjoying times in an unidentified forest. “The thing that I’ve come to realize about gratitude is it grounds me to the here and now — not the things of my past or the worries of the future,” Heming wrote in the caption.

In October, Heming posted a link to a 2017 Q&A that she and Willis did with Willis’ “The Sixth Sense” director M. Night Shyamalan for Elle Decor. The Q&A, headlined “The Domestication of Bruce Willis,” accompanied photos of Willis and Heming in their  picturesque Craftsman-style home in the woods of Bedford Hills, New York.

#BruceWillis #EmmaHeming #EvelynWillis Bruce Willis Opens Up Home In Bedford Hills https://t.co/oJmCLh1s0m pic.twitter.com/R1kuFEzmK9

— Sonya LittleLight (@LittleLight2016) October 12, 2017

“Emma and Bruce are at once refined and casual,” Shyamalan wrote in describing the couple’s “domestic bliss.” The article added that Willis, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and his model wife, “drive carpool, tend the vegetable garden and play tea party.”

“They are at ease in shorts on a comfy sofa and also in fancy attire at the dining table, sipping out-of-this-world wine,” Shyamalan said. Willis and Heming told the director they chose the house in the Hudson Valley because Willis grew up in nearby New Jersey, and Heming worked as a model in New York City.

Willis and Heming said they wanted to raise Mabel and Evelyn in a home where they could have a yard to run around in, and the couple wanted to live in a place, far from the L.A. scene, where they felt sheltered from the paparazzi. However, for reasons not specified, the couple sold that home and moved to L.A. in 2019, buying a seven-bedroom house in the Brentwood Park neighborhood, Hello magazine reported. 

It’s not likely that Willis and Heming’s home life changed much in the move from the New York suburbs to Los Angeles. The couple revealed to Shyamalan that their day-to-day lives are pretty low key, with Willis eschewing most social media and reading a print version of the New York Times every morning.

Heming also complimented her husband on being “very domesticated.” She said, “His mother taught him well! He really is great at housekeeping.”

The couple also shared that they love eating at home, instead of going out, and follow a pretty quiet evening routine of getting their daughters ready for bed, with “story time, hugs and kisses.”

“What’s nice is we’re not outnumbered,” Heming told Shyamalan. “Bruce can get one of the kids to bed while I work on the other. We have it down to a fine science at this point!”