Emma Heming Willis continues to raise awareness about her husband Bruce Willis’ illnesses and the early symptom that never in her “craziest dreams” would she have imagined was a sign that he was ill.

Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia, a neurological disease that affects the ability to communicate, in 2022. The following year, the “Die Hard” actor received an additional diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Heming Willis spoke with NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas on Tuesday about the initial symptom Willis had that she recognized but didn’t realize was a warning at the time.

“I think what I noticed was that his stuttering started to come back,” the model said. “Bruce had a severe stutter as a child and it actually hung on for dear life, but I think he managed to get it under control in his adulthood. Then I started to see it start to come back. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that it was now becoming a symptom of FTD.”

She previously opened up about her communication issues before the actor’s health diagnosis, which made her think they were headed for divorce.

Heming Willis (right) recently published a book about her career as a caregiver.
Heming Willis (right) recently published a book about her career as a caregiver.

Jamie McCarthy via Getty Images

“I felt like my marriage was falling apart,” the author told Vanity Fair in September.

Heming Willis told the outlet that she thought to herself, “What is going on? This is not the person I married. Something is very wrong,” she said, admitting that she “just couldn’t understand it.”

The clash of personalities led the two to see a doctor.

“I finally understood that those crazy marriage problems weren’t Bruce’s,” Heming Willis said in a September interview with Oprah Winfrey. “Nor were those strange moments and subtle changes in his personality. They were the result of his brain being dismantled, taking with it part of the husband he knew and loved.”

Heming Willis recently published a book about her journey as a caregiver, called “The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Self on the Path of Caregiving.”

In her interview with NewsNation on Tuesday, she described caring for the actor as “one of the most rewarding and life-changing experiences of my life.”