As Rumer Willis watched parents Bruce Willis and Demi Moore act in countless roles—and even joined the family business, making her debut in 1995's Now and Then —she always knew there was one she was destined to play: mom. “It was never a question for me,” the Sorority Row star, who turned 36 on Aug. 16, told People in March.
“I always knew.” In April 2023, Rumer and musician boyfriend Derek Richard Thomas welcomed daughter Louetta Isley Thomas Willis . And it appears fate had a hand in helping the couple choose the name.
"We were thinking about the name Loretta, and it was a typo ,” the Rumer Has It Founder noted to the magazine last August. “Her dad and I were texting, and he left the 'R' out of Loretta, and it was just Louetta. I was like, 'Oh, I love that!'” Though, the moniker also has deeper meaning.
“I have always loved the name Lou so was thinking of that for both a boy or a girl,” Rumer wrote on Instagram Stories in December, “but then when we found out she was a girl we came up with Louetta. We wanted to give her options and my dad’s favorite singers are Lou = Louie Armstrong , Etta = Etta James , Isley = Isley Brother .” As for how Bruce—who also shares daughters Scout , 33, and Tallulah , 30, with ex Demi as well as Mabel , 12, and Evelyn , 10, with wife Emma Heming Willis —feels about being a grandpa ? “He’s a girl dad through and through,” Rumer told Today in May about the Die Hard actor, who was diagnosed with frontotemporal.