Tallulah Willis Says She Thought She Was “Very Broken” Before Receiving Autism Diagnosis: “I Really Hated Myself”

Tallulah Willis is getting candid about being diagnosed with autism later in life at 29 years old.

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The entrepreneur and artist stopped by NBC’s TODAY on Wednesday, where she discussed her experience learning about her diagnosis and how it gave her clarity in her life.

“I was misdiagnosed for many years, so only at 29 got my diagnosis, which is very common, specifically for adult women,” she told hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie. “So it’s all very new for me. And so it’s only been in the last year that I’m learning what the terms are and regulating because I’m very high functioning autistic, and my struggles are more in sensory, so being very sensitive to the world, and rather than more commonly people assume it’s communication.”

Willis revealed her diagnosis in March, saying that she had learned about it last summer and was only just feeling comfortable announcing it. When asked how she felt when she found out she was on the spectrum, she said it was “very emotional.”

“It was relief,” she told the hosts. “If I’m being honest, I really hated myself, and I thought I was very broken, so to learn that the elements of myself that I felt were maladies or wrong or just too much for this world are actually OK, and they just require maybe a little bit more tools.”

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The artist is the youngest daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, who was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022. His condition worsened over time, and, in 2023, his family announced it had become frontotemporal dementia .

Willis has been open about her father’s struggles, and how she and her family are coping. In a first-person essay in Vogue , she revealed she had “ known that something was wrong for a long time” before he was diagnosed. During her appearance on TODAY , she opened up further about his condition, noting that he’s stable.

“There’s painful days, but there is so much love, and it’s really shown me to not take any moment for granted, and I really do think that we’d be best friends,” she said. “I think he’s very proud of me.”

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