Did you know that Bruce Willis partially lost his hearing making one of his biggest films?
Or that an injury on another film set was so bad he sued the studio?
Keep watching for more tragic details about the "Die Hard" star.
Bruce Willis did not have an easy childhood.
He particularly faced bullying because he stuttered.
The condition began when he was six, and as he told The Hollywood Reporter,
"There was a lot of bullying in my life, and I had to fight my way out.
Kids get mean."
In the end, it was acting that saved Willis.
In John Parker's "Bruce Willis: The Unauthorized Biography," the actor is quoted as saying:
"I could hardly talk.
It took me three minutes to complete a sentence.
It was crushing for anyone who wanted to express themselves, who wanted to be heard and couldn't.
It was frightening.
Yet, when I became another character, in a play, I lost the stutter.
It was phenomenal."
In 2016, the American Institute for Stuttering recognized Willis for bringing awareness to
the speech disorder.
At the organization's event, Willis said to the audience,
"My advice to the young people in this room, to never let anyone make you feel like an
outcast."
"Because you will never be an outcast."
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore didn't waste any time on their romance.
They got married four months after they met in 1987, and conceived their first child,
Rumer, almost immediately after tying the knot, according to ET.
Their passionate love affair was enough to sustain a 12-year-long marriage and three
children, but it fell apart largely because everything happened so quickly.
Moore wrote of the marriage's end in her 2019 memoir "Inside Out," saying,
"We had a whirlwind, truncated infatuation that morphed into a full-on family, all in
our very first year.
When reality set in, I don't know if we really knew each other.
... I think both of us from the outset were more passionate about having kids than we
were about being married."
Moore added that she and Willis had different views on how to balance work and parenting.
He expected her to stay home and raise their children, while she planned on getting back
to work.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2000, Willis noted how fame was a huge stressor
on their relationship.
He said,
"It's difficult for any couple to keep their marriage intact under the best of circumstances,
and our marriage was under a huge magnifying glass all the time.
So, it might have been a little more difficult for us."
Luckily, the couple managed to co-parent their children and stay close even through their
later relationships.
"Die Hard" solidified Bruce Willis as a Hollywood icon, but the 1988 film also left one of the
actor's senses severely compromised.
Willis briefly mentioned the issue during a 2007 interview with The Guardian.
When asked what his "most unappealing habit" was, Willis said,
"Due to an accident on the first 'Die Hard,' I suffer two-thirds partial hearing loss in
my left ear and have a tendency to say, 'Whaaa?'"
"Sorry, Hans.
I didn't get that message."
The movie was famous for its authentic explosions.
Jan De Bont, the cinematographer, told SlashFilm:
"The only one that's shot on miniature is the very top of the building.
[...] But many other [explosions] in the building are actually real explosions.
For instance, when the police come in with that vehicle and [Hans Gruber's henchmen are]
shooting those rocket launchers at it, that is all real."
The star's eldest daughter, Rumer Willis, said that her dad's partial deafness is why
he can come across as reserved during interviews.
According to Amplifon, she said,
"I think part of the problem is sometimes he can't hear ... because he shot a gun off
next to his ear when he was doing 'Die Hard' a long time ago."
In the 2003 film "Tears of the Sun," Bruce Willis plays Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K.
Waters, who sets out to rescue a doctor and then rescues several refugees in Nigeria.
While working on the movie, an unspecified piece of debris hit Willis' forehead as pyrotechnics
went off on set, the New York Post reported.
The actor's injuries were so severe that Willis filed a lawsuit against Revolution Studios.
Legal documents obtained by The Guardian allege that Willis suffered "extreme mental, physical,
and emotional pain" from the on-set accident.
The lawsuit claimed that the special effects team didn't maintain adequate safety on set,
and the nature of the injury meant that Willis had to hire his own doctors to deal with the
injuries.
The other details of the lawsuit were largely kept under wraps, including the financial
compensation that Willis was asking for — but the legal documents did indicate that his
medical issue wasn't resolved, and that he would continue to need medical attention after
filming had wrapped.
While Willis was once one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, something shifted with
the release of "Hudson Hawk," a 1991 comedy featuring Willis as a newly released convict.
The film scored a measly 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and spawned many articles attempting to see
at least something worthwhile in the film.
For example, in 2017, The New Yorker published a hopeful piece called "The Misunderstood
Ambition of 'Hudson Hawk.'"
But even this attempt at a fresh perspective on the film ended up criticizing it.
Though the article praised the film's imagination, it also bluntly stated:
"The basic problem with 'Hudson Hawk' is simple: it's a comedy that's not particularly funny."
"Hudson Hawk" set in motion a string of box-office flops for Willis, doing some damage to his
reputation in the process.
Ex-wife Demi Moore poked some serious fun at this during his Comedy Central roast.
"After our divorce, he said he considered the end of our marriage his biggest failure."
She then told him not to be so hard on himself, listing what she called "much bigger failures,"
including "Hudson Hawk," the movie "Striking Distance," the Planet Hollywood restaurant
chain, his work campaigning for presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and, quote, "turning
down [George] Clooney's role in 'Ocean's Eleven' to focus on playing the harmonica?"
Bruce Willis faced a serious loss in 2001 when his younger brother, Robert Willis, was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to The New York Times.
Only six weeks after the diagnosis, Robert died at the age of 42.
The event was harrowing for Bruce.
He told the newspaper of his brother,
"He said: 'Look, this does not scare me.
I accept this, and I know that you guys are going to grieve, but don't grieve too hard.'"
Bruce was in the middle of working on "True West," so the star commuted between Idaho
and Massachusetts during Robert's final days.
The loss was transformative for Bruce.
He said,
"It's a good message to people — to live it up, you know.
I remember a saying that was really popular when I was a kid: save for a rainy day.
I think it's raining right now.
I think you shouldn't postpone happiness at any time."
With grief came the desire for answers.
The Irish Examiner noted that Bruce later sought out a medium to contact Robert.
The actor said,
"This woman is someone who can receive information from the other side.
She began speaking in the voice of my brother, cursing like he did.
[...] Tears rolled down my face and now I know the switch is not turned off, that there
is life after death."
On March 30, 2022, members of Bruce Willis' family shared a shocking announcement about
the actor's health and career.
Ex-wife Demi Moore wrote on Instagram,
"Our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed
with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities.
Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him."
According to the Mayo Clinic, aphasia can manifest rapidly.
Sometimes it's caused by a stroke, a head injury, or it can develop over time in the
brain as a result of a tumor or other brain disease.
The result is an inability to understand written or spoken language.
As Dr. Gayatri Devi explained on the "Today" show,
" In some cases, depending on the cause, it can start slowly and progress, and sometimes
it can happen abruptly."
Those who suffer from aphasia may not make sense when they speak and may fail to understand
what someone else is saying.
The coherence of their writing may also be compromised.
Symptoms can vary from person to person.
As The New York Times reported, there isn't a cure for aphasia, but therapeutic approaches
can help with some symptoms.
The patient may focus on reading or writing exercises or other therapies that can help
with communication.
Despite the tragic news, Moore's final note on Instagram was a hopeful one:
"As Bruce always says, 'Live it up' and together we plan to do just that."
While Bruce Willis' retirement due to aphasia might be news to the general public, it sounds
like some who worked closely with him in the film industry weren't totally caught off guard.
As director Mike Burns told the Los Angeles Times, when he was working with Willis on
"Out of Death" in 2020, he asked the film's writer to not only reduce the star's part
but make sure his character didn't have any big chunks of dialogue.
Burns didn't mention why at the time.
That same year, Willis filmed "Hard Kill," an action flick in which he acted opposite
Lala Kent of "Vanderpump Rules."
The Bravo star recalled to the L.A. Times that there was a precarious production moment
where Willis apparently neglected to say a certain line before firing a blank.
The line was Kent's cue to move.
Kent said,
"Because my back was to him, I wasn't aware of what was happening behind me.
But the first time, it was like, 'No big deal, let's reset.'"
Kent told the outlet that it happened again.
Multiple people who were on the set corroborated her story, but others, including the armorer
for the production, disputed her account.
This situation will likely bring back memories of the accidental fatal shooting in New Mexico
on October 21, 2021, in which Alec Baldwin was mistakenly given a loaded gun and shot
cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, killing her.
For Willis, a crew member explained,
"We always made sure no one was in the line of fire when he was handling guns."
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