Emma Heming opens up about meeting Bruce Willis while engaged to someone else

Bruce Willis' wife, Emma Heming, has shared new details about how she and Willis first met, whom she is now caring for as he lives with dementia.

Willis, 71, and Heming, 50, who got married in 2009, first met in 2005 at a Los Angeles gym. At the time, Heming was a model who had walked in Victoria's Secret shows. 

She said she had never really thought about Willis before meeting him, since she didn't watch action movies.

After they first met, Heming told her mom how nice Willis seemed. But her mom reminded her that she was engaged to someone else at the time. 

"So, when I had noticed him, I had said to my mother, 'You know, I met Bruce Willis, and he's really a lovely man.' And my mom was like, 'What are you doing? You're engaged to be married.' And I said, 'No, no, no!'" Heming said with a laugh.

Heming did not name her ex-fiancé, but he was a nightlife businessman named Brent Bolthouse.

Heming shared these memories on Hoda Kotb's podcast, Making Space. She described Willis as warm, funny, and someone who always wanted to learn more about her life.

Years later, after her engagement ended, Heming and Willis went on their first date.

"Yes, at the time, I was engaged to be married, but I had met him and I had just noticed that. And it wasn't until years later, until after my engagement fizzled - thankfully - that we went on our first date, and I just really loved being around him."

Emma said being around Bruce felt warm and safe. "There was just something really warm, safe and fun. My husband is just so full of life and it was a really beautiful time."

The couple married in 2009, about 11 years after Willis' divorce from actress Demi Moore, with hom he shares three daughters, including Rumer, 37, Scout, 35, and Tallulah, 32.

Bruce also shares two daughters Mabel, 14, and Evelyn, 12, with Emma.

In 2022, Willis stepped away from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a condition that affects a person's ability to speak and understand language. In 2023, his family shared that his condition had worsened into frontotemporal dementia.