Sylvester Stallone, who worked with Bruce Willis in the first two films in The Expendables franchise, publicly sent Willis and his family well-wishes on social media. Yesterday, Willis’s family announced that he was “stepping away” from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, a neurological condition that affects language and memory. Fans and Hollywood stars have been sending love to Willis in the wake of the announcement, which came after years of Willis turning his back on big-budget productions to work on smaller films, most of which went straight to streaming. The star’s last major leading role was in 2019, when he appeared in both Motherless Brooklyn and Glass.
The note from Stallone is likely to pull at some action fans’ heartstrings, since Willis’s departure from The Expendables was somewhat acrimonious, with Stallone calling Willis “greedy and lazy” at the time. Stallone’s message comes on the heels of a similar tweet from filmmaker Kevin Smith, who said he felt bad after years of making jokes at Willis’s expense when the two clashed on the set of Cop Out.
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“We go back a long way,” Stallone wrote, sharing a number of photos of the two together over the years. “Praying for the best for you and your wonderful family.”
You can see the post below.
Willis’s career has been full of headline-grabbing feuds, although most of them, as with Stallone, have cooled over time. As early as 1992, the book The Devil’s Candy painted Willis in a pretty unfavorable light while documenting the production of The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Moonlighting — the role that made him famous — ended in part because Willis and his co-star Cybill Shepherd struggled to get along.
Later in life, Willis lost some of the acrimony he had developed with the tabloids over the years, and became something of a gossip-column darling, owing to the heartwarming way he and ex-wife Demi Moore (and their new spouses) have acted toward one another.
Earlier this month, the Golden Raspberry Awards created a special category designed to poke fun at Willis for his eight critically-panned movies released in 2021. Unlike Smith, the Razzies have not backed down, expressing sympathy for Willis but standing by the award.
