Growing up with extremely famous parents has its privileges — see: the entire nepo-baby debate — but the tabloid scrutiny around your mother’s relationships is not one of them.
Tallulah Willis, the 29-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, opened up about life in the limelight in the Monday premiere of the Fox reality show series “Stars on Mars.”
In the show, celebrities compete to survive in a Mars-like simulation in Australia.
When her competitor Ronda Rousey asked what it was like growing up with famous parents, the actor and entrepreneur was brutally honest.
“I grew up in Idaho. And I knew my parents had this job that made them this thing, and we got to do cool stuff, but I didn’t fully understand,” Tallulah said.
She said that it wasn’t until her mother started dating Ashton Kutcher in 2003 that things became real.
“It was that moment, a lot going on, and I really went inside of myself, and that did send me into like a total dumpster fire. It was really hard, and I’m still unpacking,” she said.
Tallulah said the silver lining was the bond she formed with her older sisters, Rumer Willis, 34, and Scout Willis, 31.
“I found the other side of that, which is like I really love myself now, and I love my family,” she continued.
Tallulah was 8 when Moore, then 40, married Kutcher, then 25, in 2005.
The two split after six years of marriage in 2011 and finalized their divorce in 2013.
The Willises are close with their father, Bruce, who announced he was stepping away from acting because of his aphasia diagnosis in March 2022. Bruce married the model Emma Heming in 2009, and the couple share two daughters, Mabel, 11, and Evelyn, 9.
Tallulah has talked openly about her struggles with anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphia, which she said were exacerbated by her parents’ time in the spotlight.
In an essay in Vogue, she described a formative experience when photos of her at age 11 at an event with Moore and Kutcher were met online with a trove of negative comments about her body and appearance.
“I wanted to see if my outfit had made the party pages of any of the style websites,” she wrote. “Then I found my way to the comments, hundreds of them, the words just burning off the screen.”
Tallulah Willis said her mom Demi Moore’s marriage to Ashton Kutcher sent her into ‘a total dumpster fire’. Tallulah Willis said her mom Demi Moore’s marriage to Ashton Kutcher sent her into ‘a total dumpster fire’