The Willis family has gone through a lot during these past months, and their struggles are far from over.
Ever since the Die Hard star was diagnosed with a condition that affects one’s ability to communicate, the world fell silent. His family provided him with extreme support and has been updating his fans of Bruce’s condition regularly.
Bruce withdrew from from the spotlight, and later on, he was diagnosed with a more specific condition; frontotemporal dementia.
“Our family wanted to start by expressing our deepest gratitude for the incredible outpouring of love, support and wonderful stories we have all received since sharing Bruce’s original diagnosis,” his daughter Rumer Willis posted on the social media.
“In the spirit of that, we wanted to give you an update about our beloved husband, father and friend since we now have a deeper understanding of what he is experiencing.
“Since we announced Bruce’s diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruce’s condition has progressed and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD).”
As Bruce’s wife, ex-wife, and his daughters were as well affected by his illness, his daughter Tallulah, whom the actor shares with Demi Moore, is experiencing issues with her mental health and they get worse as her father’s health condition worsens.
Tallulah spoke openly of her anorexia after she was dumped by her fiancè Dillon Buss less than three months after her father’s aphasia diagnosis.
As per reports, Bruce is being aware of his daughter’s suffering.
“Bruce could see her wasting away and it only made his own problems worse,” a source said, as reported by Radar.
“Bruce was shattered when he saw Tallulah’s suffering,” the insider went on.
“It got to the point where the family thought it would be better if they weren’t around each other at all.”
Tallulah has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after she checked into an in-patient facility following the breakup.
In the essay she penned for Vogue Magazine, Tallulah explained that her struggles with body dysmorphia began when she started taking medication for ADHD.
“I felt smart for the first time,” Tallulah said of taking her medication, “but I also started to enjoy the appetite-suppressant side effect of the meds. I saw a way to banish the awkward adolescent in favor of a flighty little pixie. And like so many people with eating disorders, my sense of myself went haywire.
“There’s an unhealthy deliciousness at the beginning of losing weight rapidly. People are like, ‘Oh wow!’ And then quickly it turns to, ‘Are you okay?’ My friends and family were terrified, and I dismissed it.”
The 29-year-old added: “By the spring of 2022, I weighed about 84 lbs. I was always freezing. I was calling mobile IV teams to come to my house, and I couldn’t walk in my Los Angeles neighborhood because I was afraid of not having a place to sit down and catch my breath.”
We truly hope Tallulah would be able to overcome her health issues.
House’ Actor Hugh Laurie Makes Surprising Revelation: ‘My Dad Would Have Hated Me Playing a Fake Doctor
Even though TV’s most famous doctor was earning $700,000 per episode in the final season, *House* star Hugh Laurie said he still feels like a fraud.
Laurie regrets playing a “fake version” of a doctor instead of becoming a real one, as his father had hoped. He admitted that his “dad would have hated” the easier path he chose by becoming an actor.
Keep reading to find out why Laurie chose acting over medicine.
Dr. William (Ran) Laurie, Hugh’s father, had big dreams for his youngest son, born in June 1959.
Hugh Laurie was on track to follow in his father’s footsteps. His father was not only a respected physician but also a 1948 Olympic gold medalist in rowing and a graduate of a Cambridge college.
When British-born Hugh Laurie was studying at the same college as his father, he was also a member of the rowing team, with plans to train for the Olympics and then go to medical school.
However, Laurie discovered a drama club, the Cambridge Footlights, a sketch comedy group. There, he met actress Emma Thompson (*The Remains of the Day*) and his future comedy partner, Stephen Fry, who later co-starred with him in the 1997 film *Wilde*.
Laurie’s path changed completely.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the now 64-year-old actor appeared in several TV shows, including the BBC sitcom *Blackadder*, where he co-starred with Fry.
Hugh Laurie also appeared in the 1995 film *Sense and Sensibility* with Emma Thompson, with whom he had once been in a relationship. He starred in Disney’s live-action *101 Dalmatians* (1996) and even made a guest appearance on *Friends*.
In 2004, Laurie was offered the chance to play a doctor in a new TV series called *House*, a medical drama that ran for eight seasons.
In his Golden Globe-winning role as Dr. Gregory House, Laurie dropped his British accent and perfectly played the narcissistic genius who led a teaching hospital in New Jersey.
During the show’s run, Laurie became Hollywood’s most popular doctor, gaining a huge global fan base. However, life as a celebrity also brought its own challenges.
“I had some pretty bleak times, dark days when it felt like there was no way out,” Hugh Laurie said in a 2013 interview with *Radio Times* (via *Daily Mail*). “I have a strong work ethic, so I was determined never to be late or miss a single day of filming. You wouldn’t catch me calling in sick, saying, ‘I think I’m getting the flu.’ But there were times when I’d think, ‘If I had a little accident on the way to the studio and got a couple of days off to recover, that would be great.’”
Those days off didn’t come until 2012, with the final season of *House*.
After that, Laurie kept busy, appearing in TV shows like *Veep* and the 2015 science fiction film *Tomorrowland*, which starred another famous TV doctor, George Clooney.
In 2016, Hugh Laurie took on another doctor role, this time as neuropsychiatrist Dr. Eldon Chance in the TV series *Chance*.
The *Maybe Baby* star explained to the *Los Angeles Daily News*, “As a gambler, my instinct is to walk away after even a modest win… Yet I was drawn back to this wonderful project that was simply irresistible.” Comparing *House* to his role in *Chance* (which was canceled after two seasons in 2017), Laurie said, “The characters are very different. Their medical practices and attitudes toward life are completely different.”
Despite his Hollywood fame, Laurie, who also starred in 2018’s *Holmes & Watson*, still feels he let his father down by not becoming a real doctor. His father, who passed away from Parkinson’s disease in 1998, had been a respected physician.
“My father was a real doctor. If it’s true that many men try to become versions of their father and fail, it seemed fitting that I ended up being a fake version of a doctor,” said Laurie, who also played a doctor in the 2005 film *The Big Empty*.
“My father had high hopes for me to follow him into medicine,” Hugh Laurie said. “I would have liked to become a doctor myself, and I still have dreams about being one. We live in a world of shortcuts, don’t we? And I took those shortcuts. Dad would have hated that.”
Laurie calls himself a “cop-out,” adding, “Honestly, this causes me a lot of guilt.”
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