WASHINGTON — During an appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Tallulah Willis shed light on why her family chose to be so open about Bruce Willis' dementia diagnosis and detailed how he's doing today.
"What's going on with my dad, he has a really aggressive cognitive disease, form of dementia, that's very rare," the 29-year-old actress and daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore described.
Back in February, Bruce Willis' family announced the acclaimed actor had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. The condition, also known as FTD, is the cause of approximately 10% to 20% of dementia cases, according to Mayo Clinic.
Tallulah Willis shared during Wednesday's episode of Barrymore's daytime talk show that they've been so open about her dad's condition because it's who they are as a family and in order to spread awareness about FTD.
"If we can take something that we're struggling with as a family and individually, to help other people, to turn it around, to make something beautiful about it. That's really special for us," Tallulah said.
She also provided an update on how her dad has been doing recently.
"He is the same, which I think in this regard I've learned is the best thing that you can ask for, and what I see is, I see love when I'm with him. And it's my dad and he loves me," she explained.
Tallulah sat down with Barrymore to discuss an essay she wrote for Vogue about family tragedy, her own struggles with mental health and how she was reckoning with her father's dementia diagnosis.
In the piece published last June, Tallulah Willis shared that she refused to face the truth of her father's faltering mental faculty for a long time because she was wrestling with her own demons: Depression, anorexia and ADHD.
She revealed in the essay that a turning point came when she attended a wedding and realized her father wouldn't be involved with her own.