Longtime Friend of Bruce Willis Gives Update on His Battle With Dementia

The creator of Moonlighting, the cult-favorite TV show which launched Bruce Willis to fame, has given an update on the actor’s battle with frontotemporal dementia.

Moonlighting aired five seasons from 1985–1989. The highly influential, genre-bending series starred Willis as private eye David Addison and Cybill Shepherd as model-cum-detective Maddie Hayes. It's the role that won Willis his spot in Die Hard and launched the rest of his career. On October 10, after decades of being unavailable to the public, Moonlighting made its streaming debut on Hulu.

Speaking to The New York Post, creator Glenn Gordon Caron said that Willis long-hoped the show would be made available to a wider audience. As a result, the timing of its Hulu premiere is bittersweet. Willis’ family announced his retirement earlier this year, as his disease progressed.

“I know [Bruce is] really happy that the show is going to be available for people, even though he can’t tell me that,” Caron told The Post. “When I got to spend time with him we talked about it and I know he’s excited.”

The showrunner continued: “The process [to get Moonlighting on 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.”

Caron says he has trouble reconciling the Bruce he knows now with the Bruce he knew throughout his life. “The thing that makes [his disease] so mind-blowing is [that] if you’ve ever spent time with Bruce Willis, there is no one who had any more joie de vivre than he. He loved life and just adored waking up every morning and trying to live life to its fullest.”

Caron says that he tries to visit the Unbreakable star at least once a month. Although the actor is “not totally verbal,” necessitating a variety of life changes, Caron reports that there are still glimmers of the old Bruce that shine through.

“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,” Caron reflected, “but the joie de vivre is gone.”

All five seasons of Moonlighting are currently streaming on Hulu.