Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955 in Idar-Oberstein, Germany) is an American actor and singer. He came to fame in the late 1980s and has since retained a career as both a Hollywood leading man and a supporting actor, in particular for his role as John McClane in the Die Hard series. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000 after thirteen years of marriage. He has received multiple awards and honors throughout his career and has publicly showed his support for the United States armed forces. In various interviews, Willis has revealed his political opinions and interest in several conspiracy theories. Motion pictures that feature him as a leading actor or supporting co-star, have grossed a total of $2.42 to $2.88 billion at the North American box office, placing him as the sixth (as strictly lead) or the ninth highest-grossing movie star (counting supporting roles) of all time.
At the premiere for the film Stakeout, Willis met actress Demi Moore who was dating actor Emilio Estevez at the time. Willis married Moore on November 21, 1987 and had three daughters (Rumer Glenn Willis (born 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (1994)) before the couple divorced on October 18, 2000. The couple gave no public reason for their breakup. Willis reacting on his divorce stated "I felt I had failed as a father and a husband by not being able to make it work" and credited actor Will Smith for helping him get through the divorce. Willis and Moore currently share custody of the three daughters they had during their thirteen-year union. Since their breakup, rumors persisted that the couple planned to re-marry, but Moore has since married the younger actor Ashton Kutcher. Willis has maintained a close relationship with both Moore and Kutcher. Since his divorce he has dated models Maria Bravo Rosado and Emily Sandberg and also was engaged to Brooke Burns, until they broke up in 2004 after dating for ten months. Recently, he has been spotted dating Playboy Playmates Tamara Witmer and Karen McDougal on different occasions. Willis has expressed interest in getting married again and having more children. Bruce Willis was, at one point, Lutheran (specifically Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod); but no longer practices, based on a statement he made in the July 1998 issue of George magazine:
| Organized religions in general, in my opinion, are dying forms", he says. "They were all very important when we didn't know why the sun moved, why weather changed, why hurricanes occurred, or volcanoes happened", he continues. "Modern religion is the end trail of modern mythology. But there are people who interpret the Bible literally. Literally!" he says incredulously. "I choose not to believe that's the way. And that's what makes America cool, you know? |
In early 2006, Willis, who usually lives in Los Angeles, moved into an apartment located in the Trump Tower in New York City. Willis also has a home in Malibu, California, a ranch in Montana, a beach home on Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos, and multiple properties in Sun Valley, Idaho. Willis owns his own motion picture production company called Cheyenne Enterprises which he started with his business parter Arnold Rifkin in 2000. He also owns several small businesses in Hailey, Idaho including The Mint Bar and The Liberty Theater and is a co-founder of Planet Hollywood along with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
Willis, an avid New Jersey Nets fan, made controversial comments on April 29, 2007 during a live broadcast of a Nets home playoff game vs. the Toronto Raptors on TSN by saying a catch phrase from his Die Hard films, "Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker", at the end of the interview. Reacting to the backlash, he later blamed his actions on jet lag, stating: "Sometimes I overestimate my ability to function under duress with less than enough sleep".