Why Bruce Willis Was ‘Furious’ With Demi Moore After Having Their First Child
Although Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are on great terms nowadays, they got divorced because they had polarizing views on family life. Willis held a more traditional view of things and wanted to be the sole breadwinner in the family. He wanted Moore to stay home to look after the kids while he went off and made movies.
But Moore, who at that point was the most successful female actor in Hollywood, refused to give up her passion or say goodbye to the spotlight. This caused a rift in their marriage, and Willis ultimately became “furious” with Moore for refusing to give up her acting job.
Bruce Willis wanted to be the breadwinner in the family
According to Moore’s memoir, Inside Out, Willis expected Moore to give up her passion as an actor so she could attend to their child. Yet when she got a fantastic opportunity for a film project, Willis was less than thrilled about the news. In fact, he was downright furious.
“This will never work,” Willis told Moore.
“What do you mean, this won’t work?” she asked.
“This will never work,” he continued, “if you’re off shooting a film.”
“What he meant,” writes Moore, “was that our life wouldn’t work if I was engrossed in something outside of our family. I felt panic mounting. I felt way too much anxiety to have a real conversation with Bruce about our assumptions regarding work, gender roles, and parenting. The deep stuff we obviously needed to start figuring out together to have a successful marriage.”
And shortly after this conversation, Willis said, “I don’t know if I want to be married.”
At this statement, Moore felt like she had been “sucker-punched.”
Bruce Willis was ‘furious’ with Demi Moore after having Rumer Willis
After having their first daughter, Willis fully expected Moore to stay at home with baby Rumer while he continued to make films. But Moore was at the height of her fame, and she wasn’t ready to give up the spotlight just yet. Unfortunately, this created a lot of tension between the once-happy couple.
“Bruce was furious with me for going back to work, on top of all his mixed feelings he already had about our marriage,” writes Moore. “I had a very rebellious reaction to Bruce in general. I just didn’t buy the ‘You’re the king’ kind of thing, which he thrived on. Plus, telling me, ‘I don’t know if I want to be married’ is not exactly the way to my heart.”
Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are better off as friends
Fortunately, everything worked out for Willis and Moore in the end. As sad as their breakup was, they remain “best friends” to this day and are experts at co-parenting regardless of their divorce from over 20 years ago. In fact, Moore even claims that she’s “proud” of their divorce and how maturely they’ve both handled it.
“It’s a funny thing to say, but I’m very proud of our divorce,” Moore writes. “I think Bruce was fearful at the beginning that I was going to make our split difficult, that I would express my anger or whatever baggage I had from our marriage by obstructing his access to the kids. That I’d turn to all of those ploys divorcing couples use as weapons. But I didn’t, and neither did he.”
