Bruce Willis Gets Disheartening Health Update From Moonlighting Creator 1 Year After Retirement

Summary Bruce Willis’ family confirmed that his aphasia has rendered him mostly incommunicative, taking away his language skills and leaving him without his former joie de vivre.
Recent updates suggest that Bruce Willis’ acting return is becoming more unlikely, as his condition has advanced and there are currently no specific treatments for his diagnosis of aphasia.
Despite his health concerns, Bruce Willis leaves behind a significant legacy in film, showcasing his talent in action, comedy, and drama genres, and receiving support and admiration from collaborators and colleagues.
As his star-making show finally makes its way to streaming, Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron has offered a disheartening update on Bruce Willis’ health. The Golden Globe winner’s family announced in early 2022 that the actor would be retiring from the industry following a diagnosis of aphasia, a brain condition in which the person struggles to comprehend or formulate language. In the year since his retirement, Willis’ family have offered a variety of updates for the extra time spent with them, while a variety of former collaborators have shared their support for his recovery.
Just over a year after his retirement was announced, the classic Willis sitcom Moonlighting finally landed a streaming home at Hulu, which creator Glenn Gordon Caron recently spoke with the New York Post about to discuss its premiere. When asked about Willis’ thoughts on the streaming premiere, Caron stated that the star is “really happy” about it, but offered a disheartening health update for the Golden Globe winner, confirming that while “he’s still Bruce”, his aphasia has rendered him mostly “incommunicative.” See what Caron shared below:
The process [to get ‘Moonlighting’ onto Hulu] has taken quite a while and Bruce’s disease is a progressive disease, so I was able to communicate with him, before the disease rendered him as incommunicative as he is now, about hoping to get the show back in front of people. My sense is the first one to three minutes he knows who I am. He’s not totally verbal; he used to be a voracious reader — he didn’t want anyone to know that — and he’s not reading now. All those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce. When you’re with him, you know that he’s Bruce, and you’re grateful that he’s there, but the joie de vivre is gone.
Bruce Willis’ Acting Return Seems More Unlikely Now
Though his retirement announcement seemed to indicate he would not be back to the screen, initial comments from the actor’s family seemed to indicate some hope that Willis’ treatments for his aphasia would lead to an acting return at some point in the future. More recent updates have pointed towards more caution in this respect, with his family confirming that his condition has advanced and that his specific diagnosis has no specific treatments at this time.
Even if the actor doesn’t return, Willis is leaving behind quite the mammoth legacy on screen. One of the more notable is his leading turn as action hero John McClane in the Die Hard franchise, a genre he would frequently revisit throughout the years. Willis has also shown his range in the worlds of comedy and drama, the former of which can be traced back to his award-winning work in Moonlighting while the latter was spotlighted by the likes of M. Night Shyamalan, Quentin Tarantino and Rian Johnson, among others.
Related: Paradise City: Bruce Willis’ Last Movie Let Down A Legend
While they may have all been critical duds, Bruce Willis’ work in dozens of VOD releases were also later revealed to have a good reasoning behind them, with the actor looking to make as much money as possible to provide for his family when the time eventually came to retire due to his health concerns. Given the widespread support he’s seen from everyone like longtime collaborator Shyamalan to Kevin Smith, whom he infamously feuded with on the set of Cop Out and the director has since retracted his issues with the actor, it’s clear that regardless of what the future may hold for Willis on screen, the only hope from everyone is for a comfortable life with his family.
Source: NY Post