Emma Heming gets ‘choked up’ over harsh backlash for moving Bruce Willis out of family home

Emma Heming broke down while discussing the difficulties of moving her husband Bruce Willis into a separate home amid his dementia battle.

“These are hard decisions. These are impossible — I’m getting choked up thinking about it,” Heming said at the End Well 2025 conference in Los Angeles on Nov. 20, Us Weekly reported.

“They’re impossible decisions. This is not how I envisioned our life,” she continued.

Heming, 47, said that she had to make the “best and safest decision” for their family — despite the backlash she received over the move.

“I knew by being honest and open about it, that it would be met with a lot of judgment,” she said.

While outsiders have been critical, Heming said that her family has been fully supportive.

“Because they know, they’re in it and I’ve got this beautiful blended family,” she said. “I also have Bruce’s mother who is in her 90s. I have Bruce’s brother and sister and cousins and they have been so loving and supportive and nonjudgmental.”

Heming — who shares daughters Mabel, 13, and Evelyn, 11, with the “Die Hard” actor — revealed in August that Willis moved into his own home.

“Bruce would want that for our daughters,” she said while appearing in “Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey – A Diane Sawyer Special” at the time, adding that it was a “hard” decision.

“He would want them to be in a home that was more tailored to their needs, not his needs,” she said.

Heming shared that their kids see their father often, visiting his nearby home for breakfast and dinner.

The mom of two admitted in last month’s panel that she attended therapy before discussing the decision publicly.

“It was interesting to see how much judgment and criticism about what a terrible person I am and how could I do this,” she said. “But you know what I say is that if you are not on the front lines of this, in that person’s house day in, day out, 24/7, 365 days a year — then you don’t get a say and you don’t get a vote.”

Heming explained how moving Willis out of their family home has ultimately changed things for the better.

“People don’t realize all the needs that go unmet behind closed doors and now our children’s needs are met,” she said. “They are in a home where they can have playdates and sleepovers, these things that we don’t even think about.

“Their world is completely opened up and so has my husband’s.”

Heming admitted that her husband’s illness is “messy.”

“Caregiving is messy, and you’ve got to go with the waves of it,” she said.

Willis — who also shares daughters Rumer, 37, Scout, 34, and Tallulah, 31, with ex-wife Demi Moore — was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022.

The following year, his family announced that Willis’ condition progressed and he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a neurological disorder characterized by language problems, behavioral changes and mobility issues.

Heming and Willis, 70, started dating in 2007 and tied the knot two years later.