Dementia Can Affect Anyone… Even Famous Hollywood Stars!
Dementia can be an overwhelming condition that can seriously affect the quality of life. The same can be said for celebrities who live with dementia since there doesn’t exist a healing treatment. You might believe that celebrities and rich people, in general, can rapidly solve all kinds of health issues… but not in this case. Dementia affects brain functions, memory, reasoning, thinking, and social abilities. Unfortunately, it can just be kept under control but not completely healed. The hardest job is for the family members and friends to watch their loved one deteriorate and lose control.
When it comes to celebrities who deal with such health conditions it can be really overwhelming. There’s a whole world, seeing you suffer and slowly, but surely losing your power. Who wants that? Bruce Willis, Wendy Williams, and Mavis Leno are some of the most famous people, who secretly battled dementia.
It’s interesting how a powerful actor like Bruce Willis known for his courageous characters and unbeatable acting skills was forced to retire earlier than anyone expected. Seeing him becoming worse and worse is painful not just for his family but for all of us. How does it feel to lose control of yourself while having everyone watching? It should be terrifying.
Below, you’ll find a list of celebrities, who have been diagnosed with dementia.
1. Wendy Williams
In 2023, while Wendy Williams was filming her Lifetime docuseries Where is Wendy Williams, her team announced in a press release that she was diagnosed with dementia. More specifically, she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. According to Mayo Clinic, the news shocked her fans since the condition affects her ability to communicate, speak, read, write, and understand.
The news about her diagnosis came after a few years of speculations about her mental health. Even though she decided to share her condition with the world it doesn’t mean that it was an easy experience. On the contrary, it wasn’t easy and the diagnosis was made public after careful consideration. Her team claimed that the only reason they wanted to share everything was because they also wanted to raise awareness about aphasia and frontotemporal dementia and support the thousands of others facing similar situations.
She was recently seen in a picture with her son, looking really weak and her physical aspect changed a lot … but a thing her fans observed, and made them stay positive, was the huge smile she had on her face. So, we wish Wendy to stay strong and keep fighting!
2. Bruce Willis
“To Bruce’s amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has been recently diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities,” shared Demi Moore in 2022, in a statement on Instagram. The news had Bruce’s fans in shock. Moore’s message continued, claiming that this is the end of Bruce Willis’ career that has meant so much for him. What a tragic end and what a powerful actor! We are very sorry and miss Bruce very much.
Not long after that, Bruce received a more specific diagnostic: frontotemporal dementia. It’s a cruel condition that can strike anyone, especially people under 60. Unfortunately, today there are not very effective treatments available and we hope that by sharing important people’s experiences things will evolve. The spotlight dementia gets each time it affects famous people, it help a lot building awareness and encourages research.
A year ago, a video with Bruce Willis from is 68th birthday celebration went viral, worrying his fans even more. The good part is that the beloved Bruce has his family around and is in good hands.
3. Tony Bennett
In 2021, Tony Bennett’s family announced that the singer had been dealing with Alzheimer’s disease for the past 5 years. Tony didn’t experience common symptoms like disorientation and terror, but confusion and memory loss.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive and incurable disease, which can make things very difficult for Bennett’s family. His family members claimed that sharing the diagnosis with the world was the best decision, meaning a step forward in breaking the stigma Alzheimer’s carries.
At 94 years old Tony was doing a lot of things a person without dementia couldn’t do. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2023. But the doctor who diagnosed him said: “Tony Bennett is a symbol of hope for someone with cognitive disorder.”
4. Ronald Reagan
In 1994, Ronald Reagan announced in an open letter that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Just 5 years after his presidential term, he expressed his feelings about his wife. He wasn’t worried, at all for himself, claiming that he was “fine”. He didn’t want his wife to go through all of that and take care of him while he was slowly losing control.
Reagan died a decade later and his wife became a steadfast Alzheimer’s advocate, raising awareness of the disease. She passed away in 2016, at 94 years old.
5. Robin Williams
In 2014, Robin Williams died by suicide. He was just 63 years old but his cognitive functions were out of control. The beloved comedian has experienced Lewy Body dementia, which is associated with abnormal deposits of proteins in the brain. Some of the most common symptoms of this type of dementia are depression, cognitive problems, trouble with sleep, forgetfulness, confusion, paranoia, and hallucinations.
“It was very out of character for Robin to be so paranoid”,” said Susan Schneider Williams about her late husband in an interview for The Guardian in 2021. She also talked about how hard it was to adapt to all of his symptoms. Unfortunately, for this type of dementia, the symptoms are always changing, making everything confusing for both the patient and the caregiver.
Probably the saddest thing about Robin Williams’ disease is that it wasn’t diagnosed until after his death. During his lifetime, he was treated for Parkinson’s disease. It’s true, that the conditions have a lot of symptoms in common, but it was a huge mistake that could have saved some years of his life.
Since her husband’s death, Susan Williams has become an outspoken advocate for Lewy Body dementia awareness.
6. Sharon Stone
In 2001, Stone was given a one percent chance of survival, since she suffered an aneurysm that caused a ruptured vertebral artery and a nine-day brain bleed into her head, neck, and spine. “I bled so much into my subarachnoid pool that the right side of my face fell, my left foot was dragging severely, and I was stuttering very badly,” said Sharon. She had a decade-long recovery period when she was also facing aphasia, a kind of dementia that was seriously affecting her ability to communicate.
With a lot of therapy and practice, Stone managed to improve her mental health and has become a vocal advocate for stroke survivors. “I chose to work very hard to open up other parts of my mind. Now I’m stronger. And I can be abrasively direct. That scares people, but I think that’s not my problem. It’s like I have brain damage; you’ll just have to deal with it”.
If you want to learn more about this topic, here’s a book you should check out. It can be found on Amazon. It’s the perfect guide for the families of those dealing with dementia, being written by experts with decades of experience.
Also, here is another article you should check out: Is It Schizophrenia or Dementia? 5 Signs Explained.
