BRUCE WILLIS HAD ‘COGNITIVE ISSUES’ ON SETS AHEAD OF APHASIA ANNOUNCEMENT:

Bruce Willis was having cognitive issues on the set of his recent films, and was unable to remember his lines before his family stepped in “to take care of him,” a source told Page Six.

On Wednesday, Willis’ family announced that the star has been diagnosed with aphasia and will step away from his decades-long career.

There was buzz last year that Willis was having issues on productions dating back to 2020 when the busy former “Pulp Fiction” star was making a string of mostly B action movies with titles such as “American Siege,” “Survive the Game,” “Cosmic Sin” and “Hard Kill.”

A source told Page Six of the 67-year-old star: “He was having cognitive problems, they all knew Bruce was having problems.”

The insider added, “Everybody knew, the cast and crew. His family has stepped in, they moved in to take care of him.”

Related: What is aphasia, condition that Bruce Willis is suffering from: “Aphasia is disorder stemming from damage to the parts of the brain that deal with language, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Those areas reside on the brain’s left side in most people, the institute says on its website. It usually occurs suddenly after a stroke or head injury, but can also be due to a brain tumor or progressive neurological disease, the institute said. It hits one’s ability to express and understand language, as well as read and write, and may go hand-in-hand with speech disorders. It was not clear what had brought the family to announce Willis’s condition at this time, and what could be causing it. Aphasia comes in many forms, with more than one cause, said Dr. Andrew Rogove, medical director of stroke services at Northwell Health Care’s South Shore University Hospital in Bayshore, N.Y.”