Don Johnson is offering heartfelt support to his close friend Bruce Willis.
The “Miami Vice, 75,” star spoke about his bond with Willis and touched on the actor’s battle with dementia during a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight to promote the midseason debut of his ABC series “Doctor Odyssey.”
“We’re best of friends and he’s having a little bit of a struggle right now, and I take this moment to send him love,” Johnson shared, speaking of the “Die Hard” star.
Willis’ family revealed in February 2023 that the actor, who will celebrate his 70th birthday on March 19, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia following a previous aphasia diagnosis in 2022.
In the same interview, the “Rebel Ridge” actor also looked back on helping Willis land his first TV role — on Johnson’s series “Miami Vice” — before Willis’ rise to fame on “Moonlighting,” opposite Cybill Shepherd.
“It was his first episodic TV, before ‘Moonlighting,’” Johnson noted, adding that it felt like a full-circle moment seeing Willis’ daughter, Rumer Willis, appear on “Doctor Odyssey.”
“And I knew him from New York, and I’d hang out with him and he was funny,” he continued about the action star.
Johnson explained how he pushed for Willis to be considered for a role on “Miami Vice,” saying, “So I called our casting director on ‘Miami Vice’ and I said, ‘You know, there’s a guy over there and I think he’s a struggling actor, and you should bring him in and read him because he’s really funny and I think he’d be good.’”
The casting director brought Willis in for an audition, and Johnson recalled, “She brought him in and she read him and she cast him for the wife-beater,” joking that he didn’t have to stick his neck out “that far” given Willis’ obvious talent.
“My instincts were pretty good,” Johnson added.
Rumer, 36, provided an update on her father’s health recently in a February 3 appearance on the U.K. talk show “Loose Women,” sharing that Willis is “doing really well.”
“He’s doing great,” she added.
Rumer also spoke about how her family — which includes mom Demi Moore, 62, and sisters Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 31 — have supported one another during Willis’ health struggles.
“I think what’s so beautiful is the way that we rally around each other is so lovely because we really are a unit,” she said.
Moore, who has remained close to Willis since their divorce in 2000, recently told Variety, “We will always be a family, just in a different form.”
Of Willis’ dementia battle, the “Substance” star added, “For me, there was never a question. I show up because that’s what you do for the people you love.”
