Don Johnson ‘Sends Love’ to Bruce Willis as He Opens Up About Their Lifelong Friendship

Don Johnson is sending kind words to his longtime friend Bruce Willis.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight surrounding the midseason premiere of his hit ABC medical drama Doctor Odyssey, Johnson briefly touched on his relationship with Willis and the current state of the retired actor’s health.

“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, 75, said of the Die Hard star.

Willis’ family shared in February 2023 that the actor, who turns 70 later this month, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, after revealing an aphasia diagnosis the previous year.

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In his interview with ET, Johnson also recalled advocating for Willis to land a role on the first season of his ’80s series Miami Vice, prior to Willis’ breakout Moonlighting days — and it worked!

“It was his first episodic TV, before Moonlighting,” said Johnson, while discussing the full-circle aspect of Bruce’s daughter Rumer Willis making a cameo on Doctor Odyssey. “And I knew him from New York, and I’d hang out with him and he was funny.”

“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,’ ” Johnson continued.

“She brought him in and she read him and she cast him for the wife-beater,” he recalled, joking that sticking his neck out for his talented friend “wasn’t that far” of a stretch.

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While appearing on the U.K. talk show Loose Women on Feb. 3, Rumer, 36, said that her dad was “doing really well” as of late.

“He’s doing great,” she said via video link on the show.

“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 added of her family, which includes mom Demi Moore, 62, and sisters Scout Willis, 33, and Tallulah Willis, 31.