How Bruce Willis Has Helped Tallulah Willis With Her Autism Diagnosis

There’s one life lesson Tallulah Willis learned from her dad, Bruce Willis, that she’s applied to her recent autism diagnosis.

“I would say that one of the things that has been really beautiful to explore is this ability to give grace to myself. And that was something that my dad really instilled in me at a young age,” Tallulah, 30, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, October 22. “He was a big proponent of being gentle with yourself, and it’s very easy for me to judge myself, particularly, to judge all of the aspects of my life that are my autism. I have been in a world where I’ve experienced those things to be deterrents.”

She added: “As I’m exploring what it means to give grace to myself, I definitely can see the impact my parents have had. They have really tried to encourage slowing down, which is so hard for [me]. It’s probably one of the hardest things in the world.”

Tallulah is the youngest of Bruce, 69, and his ex-wife Demi Moore’s 3 kids. The exes, who split in 2000, also share daughters Rumer, 36, and Scout, 33. Bruce went on to wed Emma Heming Willis in 2009, and the couple have since welcomed daughters Mabel, 12 and Evelyn, 10.

Back in March, Tallulah revealed that she had recently been diagnosed with autism by sharing a flashback video of herself rubbing Bruce’s head and playing with his ear on a red carpet. “Tell me your [sic] autistic without telling me your autistic 😂,” she captioned the Instagram clip.

While Tallulah wasn’t diagnosed until she was 29, she told Us that she can trace back her early signs of autism to her childhood. “I would get very overstimulated by sound,” she explained, noting that she and her second grade teacher “created a system” where she would “sit under the desk and plug my ears” when things were too noisy.

“I just don’t know if there was enough information for someone to say, ‘Hey, maybe she’s autistic.’ But there were signs,” she stated. “There were things that were present, and I really can only notice those signs in retrospect.”

The prospect of sharing her autism diagnosis with the world is something Tallulah told Us she wasn’t nervous about, but was “mindful” of. “It was never a hesitation to be vulnerable and open. It was just more going, ‘Well, how do I want to share this? Because this is a really big deal. This is an important element of who I am,’ and it ended up being that video with my Dad, and it was so sweet,” she said of her Instagram announcement. “And admittedly, I didn’t check with anyone before I posted it. It wasn’t like it was a curated discussion between me and my team or my family. It was just, I loved that video so much, and I thought that is something that can be related to, and I think it really had an impact on people.”

Tallulah was honored at the 2024 Autism Speaks Gala in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 24, for using her platform to spread autism awareness. “I still can’t believe that I am getting honored, almost in the sense that I had imposter syndrome. My diagnosis, the impact and relief that it had on my life was unprecedented and [I’m] still waiting for someone to take it away,” she told Us ahead of the event. “And so, the fact that I’m being not only acknowledged by friends and family, but universally [I’m] gobsmacked.”

With reporting by Amanda Williams