Twitter Is Calling Out Hollywood For Exploiting Bruce Willis
Legendary actor Bruce Willis' family recently announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare disease and has had to step away from acting due to this development. The "Die Hard" star's wife, Emma Heming Willis, took to Instagram to share a sweet picture of her husband wearing sunglasses with a towel wrapped around his head to announce the news, and the caption was heartbreaking.
Heming Willis stated, "To Bruce's amazing supporters, as a family, we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities. As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him." Willis' ex-wife Demi Moore, along with Moore and Willis' three daughters, shared the same message on their respective social media accounts.
Along with Willis' family, his fellow actors have been supporting the "Fifth Element" star over the last few months. Actor Rob Gough, who worked with Willis on "American Seige," told People, "Even without this information [about his diagnosis], just to be on set with the guy was so memorable and so amazing for me." Gough continued, "And then, learning about his condition, and that that was going to be one of his last films, I'm so honored and blessed that I got to work with the guy and learn from him."
However, it seems that not everyone shares Gough's sentiment. Many of Willis' fans feel that Hollywood has been exploiting the actor's cognitive decline over the years.
Many working with Willis during his final films noticed his health issues
According to the Los Angeles Times, before Bruce Willis' diagnosis became public knowledge, the cast and crew behind one of his films, "Out of Death," made changes to the script to help the actor maintain his lines better. An email sent by the film's director, Mike Burns, instructed the screenwriters to " ... knock down Bruce's page count by about 5 pages." Burns also stated that Willis' dialogue needed to be abbreviated.
It appears as though many of Willis' coworkers knew he was struggling with health concerns, though they didn't know the extent of his condition. A few people noted that the actor wasn't himself through the last few films he had been making (via Vanity Fair). This has led fans on Twitter to call out the entertainment industry for exploiting the struggling action star.
One user, @DomoFromOhio, wrote, "They really were shuffling Bruce Willis around for them to get rich off bad movies while he was suffering from a disease that affected his cognitive function ... That should be the real headline in Hollywood. Exploitation." Another Twitter user, @_ShamGod, tweeted, "Reading about Bruce Willis' last few years made me so sad. How dare Hollywood perform all this disgust over Sunday when multiple agencies and studios were complicit in enabling elder abuse of one of the industry's biggest action stars ever."
The treatment of Willis in the years following his cognitive decline has angered his fans, but hopefully, the industry will stop allegedly exploiting their struggling stars in light of these revelations.