Amid Bruce Willis’ heartbreaking battle with dementia, his daughter Rumer, 35, has opened up about their blended family bond — and what growing up was like with the “Die Hard” actor, 68, and her mom, Demi Moore, 61.
“I think what I love about both of my parents is they really cultivated our imagination and the freedom of our expression,” Rumer told The Post.
“We were allowed to wear whatever we wanted to school. I have a photo of me where I’m wearing black-and-white striped tights with a tutu and a red suede fringe jacket. And that’s what we got to wear to school. We got to be so silly.”
Rumer is a new mom, as she welcomed daughter Louetta Isley Thomas Willis in April 2023 with her partner, singer Derek Richard Thomas.
“I grew up in a house where we would lick each other’s faces, and my sisters and I would all — with my mom — we would all bathe together. And there was just a kind of crazy, silly, weirdo, goofy, naked house. I think that silliness and goofiness is so deeply a part of me, and it’s really what I want to help cultivate in [my daughter’s] life.”
Rumer is one of the “Armageddon” star’s three daughters with ex-wife Moore, who he was married to from 1987 to 2000. The exes also share daughters Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 29.
Bruce married his second wife, Emma Heming Willis, 45, in 2009, and had two more daughters: Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, 9.
The family signed a joint 2022 statement that revealed that the prolific “The Sixth Sense” actor was retiring after being diagnosed with aphasia. In February 2023, they further revealed that his condition had worsened and that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
Moore, who attended Willis’ wedding to Heming, recently gave insight into what it’s like to care for someone who has dementia during an appearance on the SiriusXM show “Radio Andy.”
“I think the most important thing I could share is just to meet them where they’re at,” the “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” actress said.
“When you let go of who they’ve been or who you think they [should be], or who even you would like them to be, you can then really stay in the present and take in the joy and the love that is present and there for all that they are, not all that they’re not.”
Rumer, for her part, loves how her family is “so supportive of each other.”
“I think the groundwork that my parents really laid was that no matter what shape our family took, we were still family. So whether they were together or whether they were not, whether my mom had a partner or my dad had a partner, we were always a family,” she said. (Moore was previously married to Ashton Kutcher from 2005 to 2013.)
“So that when my stepmom came in, when my two little sisters came in, it just meant that our family was growing. There wasn’t like, ‘Oh, here’s this family and here’s that family now.’ It’s just that our family got bigger,” she went on. “[A] collective harmony and not ever having us have to split holidays or go on different vacations. We were always together.”
The group see each other frequently — and share several text threads.
“We’re together a lot. I meet other people who also have siblings, and they don’t have the same relationship that we all have together. And I just thought that that’s how everyone was. You don’t call your sisters every day or FaceTime them multiple times a day?” she told The Post.
“We have maybe six different family threads and then even a family thread that has all of us that has our chosen family and friends on it. We’re very connected, and talk all the time and see each other all the time, which I’m super grateful for.”
Rumer’s daughter, Louetta, makes Bruce and Demi first-time grandparents, and Rumer told The Post that Bruce “lights up” when he sees his grandaughter.
“The most perfect example of who my dad is in real life is his character on ‘Moonlighting,’ ” Rumer said. “So charming, so funny, so silly . . . kind of mischievous glint in his eye, and [he is] kind and sweet. And so I feel like that’s really the epitome of who my dad is. And that is so true to this day.”
“He’s so incredibly loving and kind. My dad is absolutely the reason I like my taste in music [and for] some of my humor,” she continued. “Both of my parents are so silly . . . I’m just so grateful to have that kind of spark of mischief and fun and and play no matter what age I am.”
Little Lou has some of Bruce’s traits, too.
“When she gets stern [or looks] very discerning, she looks just like my dad. I love it, but she’s like my mini doppelganger. It’s trippy,” she said.
As for Bruce’s nickname, “it was either Papu or Grand-Daddio,” she revealed. “Which I’m a big fan, because when we were kids, we called my dad Daddio.”
“My sisters are absolutely obsessed with Lou,” Rumer went on.
“[Tallulah] is called Auntie Whimsy . . . They’re obsessed with her. Over Christmas, I barely got to hold her. Between my mom and my sisters and some of our friends there, it was like, ‘Nope, we’re gonna take her. We’re gonna go.’ And Lou just loves them.”
The 9-month-old also favors Moore, who goes by Yaya.
“Lou really loves my mom, too,” the “Dancing With the Stars” Season 20 winner revealed. “You know that little FaceTime noise? If Lou hears that, she literally will turn her face towards the camera and immediately this ear-to-ear smile is plastered on her face. Then she gets to see her Yaya, and she loses her mind.”
