Rumer Willis ‘misses’ father Bruce Willis amid his dementia battle

Rumer Willis has shared a touching tribute to her father Bruce Willis as he battles dementia and is now reportedly non-verbal.

Rumer, 35, shared a throwback picture of the pair together when she was a baby and said she’s ”missing him today”.

“Really missing my papa today,” Rumer captioned her post on Tuesday.

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One follower commented underneath: “He is still in there, sweet girl. Sometimes it might be hard for him to express it. His love for you will never change ❤️.”

“Keep talking to him. He can hear you. He can understand you. He knows you. Love him like you always do. He’s still there,” another added.

It comes after her sister Tallulah posted a series of throwback photos of herself on Instagram with their Hollywood star father and said she was “so proud” to be his daughter and have his name.

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“Damn, these photos are hitting tonight. Youre [sic] my whole damn heart and Im [sic] so proud to be your Tallulah Belle Bruce Willis,” she wrote.

In one photo, Tallulah poses in a Die Hard sweater, in a nod to his iconic action series franchise of the same name.

In another shot, the pair hug while sitting on a lounge.

Earlier this month, Tallulah gave fans an update on her father’s condition, while appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show. He is battling frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

“He has a really aggressive cognitive disease, a form of dementia that’s very rare,” she said.

“He is the same, which I think, in this regard, I’ve learned is the best thing you can ask for.”

Being open about Bruce’s progress is “important,” Tallulah said, adding that her family’s goal is to “spread awareness about FTD.”

“If we can take something that we’re struggling with as a family, individually, to help other people, to turn it around, to make something beautiful about it – that’s really special for us,” she said.

According to the Mayo Clinic, FTD is an “umbrella term for a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behaviour and language.”

Bruce’s friend and Moonlighting collaborator Glenn Gordon Caron told the New York Post that the actor is non-verbal, adding that “all those language skills are no longer available to him, and yet he’s still Bruce.”

– Additional reporting by CNN.

Dementia Australia Support: 1800 699 799