Bruce Willis' Wife Emma Says He 'Doesn't Know' He Has Dementia: 'He Never Connected the Dots' (Exclusive)

"Bruce never tapped in" to his diagnosis, Emma Heming Willis said on the Jan. 28 episode of the podcast, 'Conversations with Cam'

By Cara Lynn Shultz

Bruce Willis “never connected the dots” that he has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, his wife Emma Heming Willis says.

PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Emma’s conversation with Cameron Oaks Rogers on the Jan. 28 episode of her podcast, Conversations with Cam, during which Emma, 47, gave an update on her husband’s ongoing struggle — and shared that “Bruce never, never tapped in.”  

“I think that's like the blessing and the curse of this, is that he never connected the dots that he had this disease, and I'm really happy about that. I'm really happy that he doesn't know about it,” she shared about Bruce, 70.

Bruce — like others with similar conditions — has anosognosia, she explained. Per the Cleveland Clinic, it’s a condition where “your brain can’t recognize one or more other health conditions you have,” and is commonly seen in people with mental health disorders.  

As Emma put it, “it's where your brain can't identify what is happening to it,” so the Die Hard actor, and others with anosognosia, “think this is their normal.”