Demi Moore and Bruce Willis’ eldest daughter Rumer Willis has opened up about how her parents turned their divorce into a positive force in the lives of their children.
The actress appeared on the Glamour & Grit Podcast on 21 October, where she talked about deciding to end her relationship with her daughter Louetta’s dad, Derek Richard Thomas, explaining she felt it was better to have a friendly relationship as co-parents than to stay together for her daughter’s sake.
“The biggest lesson that I ever learned from my mum that I’ve tried to input with Louetta is that our kids don’t learn because we tell them to, they learn by watching us,” Rumer said.
“So if I’m talking badly about my body, or if I’m not living in my authenticity and I’m sacrificing just because I’m trying to make something work, that’s the pattern that she’s gonna then see.”
For the actress, the best thing to do is “to create a dynamic where she can see you can co-parent in a way that — ‘here’s your dad and your dad and I are friends.'”
This is a philosophy that Rumer developed thanks to her parents’ sweet friendship.
“I feel incredibly lucky because my parents got divorced when I was 10, but I never had to split vacations. I never had to split birthdays,” she said.
“As long as your focus is prioritising your kids and what’s for their highest good, then everything else is separate… and I’m so grateful that my parents made that choice.”
Demi and Bruce are parents to adult daughters Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. Bruce also shares daughters Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, 10, with his second wife Emma Heming Willis. All five girls, Bruce, Emma and Demi are really close as a family.
Sadly, the Die Hard actor was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2022, with his family sharing an emotional statement about his illness in February 2023.
