Bruce Willis denies he sold his face to 'deepfake' company after image appears in Russian advert

Retired Hollywood legend Bruce Willis has denied he sold the rights to his face to a company specialising in 'deepfake' content.

His denial was issued after an advert appearing to depict him was spotted on Russian TV, which it was, in fact, a digitised version of the Die Hard actor released by a company called Deepcake.

On the company's website, Willis is quoted as having said he "liked the precision of my character. It's a great opportunity for me to go back in time.

"The neural network was trained on content of "Die Hard" and "Fifth Element", so my character is similar to the images of that time."

However his agent later confirmed Willis had not sold rights to his face, and that only he was able to use it as a way of endorsing or selling products. The company had created a digitised Willis for use in an advert released in 2021.

In March the actor's family announced he would be "stepping away" from acting after he was diagnosed with Aphasia, which can damage someone's abilities with language and speech.

The 67-year-old's family said that the condition was "impacting his cognitive abilities".