The Unconventional Love Story of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis
On some levels, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis appear to be a classic example of a Hollywood love story that has shot through with a little bit of pure magic. While acting as boyfriend and girlfriend during their time on That ’70s Show, they decided to go their separate ways and stick to their own lives. Being married with kids and sharing both the screen and the stage as their lives’ partners is where they are now. Although Dukey’s off-stage life was often the subject of tabloid gossip, most notably his marriage and separation from Demi Moore, Milla seemed to have tamed the star of the Butterfly Effect.
Speaking of the separation from Mila, he agreed it was the best thing for the couple and a break gave them the opportunity to get in touch with each other on a more emotional level. “I have always looked up to Mila in so many ways,” he shared with Esquire. “Despite being an amazing person with her great talents and skills, she still did not need me. Also, she was aware that I was not dependent on her.”
Nevertheless, Kutcher and Kunis, seemingly a couple with a storybook love affair, have at times disclosed unusual aspects of their relationship. To the great surprise of people who came across their life between publicity and talk shows, habits and stories from their lives are what they have shared. Their openness about their relationship over the years has indeed kept people wondering and talking, which, in turn, has allowed them to be seen as one of the most eccentric couples in Hollywood.
Their First Kiss Was Far From Romantic
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher became recognizable to the public mainly due to their characters on That ’70s Show, which eventually became romantically involved. However, the two stars were a pretty big age gap between them that was not known to the public. Mila Kunis has mentioned that she was just 14 years old when she went for the audition for the series but she told the casting directors that she was 18. On the other hand, Ashton Kutcher was 19 when they started filming.
Kunis admitted that she even had a little crush on her co-star, noting it in her diary back then. Referring to her feelings for him, Kutcher shared his memory at The Howard Stern Show: “She thought I was cute. At first I think she thought I was good-looking … shortly thereafter, I was just annoying to her because I was like, big brother.”
When the two young actors were required to share an on-screen kiss in the first season, things got complicated. Kutcher recalled the incident as a very uncomfortable one: “It was really weird. I was like, ‘Isn’t this illegal?’”
Kunis shared her version of the story in 2002 on The Rosie O’Donnell Show: “I’ve never kissed a guy before. I was a 14-year-old little girl and I was extremely scared for my life.” To add more fuel to the fire, Masterson had already wagered with Kutcher that he wouldn’t go for a French kiss on her, however, he did just the opposite. While Kunis made a successful intervention, she still remembered the instant clearly: “I didn’t let him do it, but I think he tried.”
Ashton Once Tried to Set Mila Up With a Friend
Fans were most likely thrilled to assume the possibility of their characters becoming a couple, but things turned out to be quite different. In the end, Kutcher tied the knot with Demi Moore back in 2005, and at that period, Kunis was single and going out with people. Kunis talked about the times when her life changed on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
They were young adults and hence the time when they were in touch, communicating informally through AOL and iChat.
Then, they happened to be at the same place, an awards show, and Kunis confessed that it was there that she saw Kutcher in a new light.
Kutcher was giving her an invitation for his housewarming party but she found out later that he had another reason. He was not trying to pursue her, instead, he was trying to get her together with one of his closest friends. According to Kunis, the plan went nowhere as she was not at all interested in his friend but felt that she was attracted to Kutcher. Looking back, she framed it as destiny: “It’s all meant to be.”
Competing in Almost Identical Movies
Before forming a relationship, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were two protagonists of similar in plots and released concurrently, romantic comedies. No Strings Attached was on the list, Ashton Kutcher was the main character along with Natalie Portman, and the storyline was about two friends starting a casual sex-only relationship. While No Strings Attached was in theaters, Friends With Benefits with almost the same plot was released and Mila Kunis was next to Justin Timberlake as a co-star. More than ten years later, Kutcher talking about the weirdness of the situation in an interview with Vanity Fair said: “We were both making pretty much the same movie, and the way we ended up together was through a ‘Friends With Benefits,’ ‘No Strings Attached’ type of thing that became something more.”
On her part, Kunis, while on Marc Maron’s podcast in 2018, recounted how they actually acted out the scripts of the movies in their personal lives. Before everything got complicated, they both decided to keep their relationship off the serious track: “The thing is we did the movies where it was like, let’s just hook up. Let’s have fun. We’re both single. We both trust each other. Everything’s great.”
After that period of time, Kunis admits she was more and more into her ex. However, Kutcher wanted more and thus, instead of a breakup, he proposed that she moves in with him, and in the words of Kunis: “So, the thing is we never dated. For three months, we only hooked up and then we decided to live together.”
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ Honeymoon Goes Off the Rails
Kutcher and Kunis didn’t flash much when they got married. End of 2014, Kutcher put out a photo of the family, which also included their daughter Wyatt, with the caption: “Happy New Year, The Kutchers.” When Ellen DeGeneres later asked Kunis about the caption on her show (via ABC News), Kunis was evasive, saying, “We could just be a plural. My daughter has his last name legally, so thus, there’s multiple Kutchers.”
However, it appears they had secretly gotten married. What was more stunning than the wedding surprise was their selection of the honeymoon: an RV trip with Kutcher’s parents. Kunis explained on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that she was the one who bought the RV for Kutcher, turning their post-wedding trip into what she called “a real-life National Lampoon’s honeymoon.”
The modest RV of the couple was hilariously opposed to the luxury “Taj Mahal” version of Kutcher’s parents. To add insult to injury their air conditioner broke down, they were lost on the road, and had to get around huge boulders. The frustration was so intense that they ended up giving up and taking a plane back home when they got to Napa Valley. Kunis later, despite their trip, chuckled: “Three years later, we really like each other!”
Mila Became Ashton’s Test Pilot for Dating Apps
As well as being an actor, Kutcher has become known as a brilliant tech investor, with a series of early investments in companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Skype. In several interviews, he explained that as a rule he tests the apps for himself before investing: “I eat the dog food. Whatever it is, I try it first,” he told The Howard Stern Show.
Yet there are times when he asks Kunis to do the work for him, and that is particularly true of dating apps. Despite not using social media herself, Kunis confessed on Jimmy Kimmel Live that her husband once persuaded her to set up a Tinder account so that he could familiarize himself with the app. While she was swiping left and right, she was jokingly saying: “I’m on this thing going, ‘What is this?!’”
She confessed that she even tried Grindr at his request, but she jokingly remarked that the experience did not make them any more informed.
Leaving the Bathroom Door Wide Open
Some of the couple’s oddities are things that most people would hide. Not Kutcher and Kunis. In 2022, Kunis told E! News that in their home, bathroom doors never go shut.
“It’s just one of those for better, for worse, as a family and the kids have all kind of embodied bodily function as a very standard norm,” she said.
Even though it might be their thing, fans had a strong reaction online, with a lot of them thinking that the disclosure was uncalled for. A user on social media commented: “We should all know less about one another,” while another one adding: “Everything I hear about this family is against my will.”
Bath Time Isn’t a Daily Priority
Bathroom habits are often mentioned when talking about Kutcher and Kunis. They said during an interview on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast in 2021 that they do not necessarily bathe themselves or their kids daily.
Kunis disclosed: “I don’t wash my body with soap every day.” Kutcher added: “I clean my armpits and crotch every day, and that’s it.” They also said that kids were allowed to be as unwashed as they wanted: “That’s the way we feel about our kids; we’re like, ‘Oof, something stinks!'”
This comfortable admission to the public drew a lot of negative reactions to the couple. One of the angry reviewers said, “You are responsible for your filth as an adult. However, what about your children??”
On The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Kunis sarcastically responded to the critics, she explained that the couple had never intended not to bathe the kids daily, but sometimes reality interferes: “Sometimes, bedtime takes place, and I forgot to give them food.” Ellen jokingly remarked that Kunis had made the anecdote worse with that extra detail.
Mila Stepped In to Fix Ashton’s Awkward Red Carpet Moment
At the start of 2023, Kutcher starred in the lead role of the Netflix romantic comedy Your Place or Mine alongside Reese Witherspoon. However, their co-promotion pictures have become viral memes, not because of the mutual attraction but due to the discomfort that they seemed to show while posing together, as widely commented by people. In many pictures, Witherspoon was seen turning away from Kutcher, and fans couldn’t help but laugh at it. One internet user even sarcastically commented: “Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon please, I’m begging”, along with a meme that said, “Oh, god, can you guys just act like adults and have an affair or something?”
Mila Kunis also remarked on it. Later on, Kutcher acknowledged in the Chicks in the Office podcast that his wife sent a group message to both him and Witherspoon, telling them to stop worrying and have fun: “Guys, you gotta like… you gotta like, act like you like each other.”
Kutcher further added that the reason for their conduct was that they were very cautious about their reputation, and that there was no weirdness between them. In fact, they are buddies, yet their obsession with being noticed caused them to be the very ones to end up in that unpleasant situation they wanted to get out.
Renting Out Their Guest House on Airbnb
Kutcher’s love for tech startups was eventually the reason for the strangest in the public life of the couple: the decision to rent out their guest house via Airbnb. One of the earliest investors in the platform, Kutcher, had once questioned if the concept would become popular. After his divorce from Demi Moore, though, he experienced what it was like to stay in an Airbnb himself and rapidly saw its potential: “It’s become a community, not just a place to stay. That, I believe, is the way it makes the world one.”
In 2023, we saw them going beyond the usual scope and staging a one-night quirky sponsored promotion of their guest house to the public. A night on their property was not the only thing that fans got; the couple also let out that they would be doing “content creating” with their temporary guests.
Kutcher had a shot of the house in an Instagram Story where he said: “It’s really great here, I think they’ll love it.” Kunis added: “I think they’ll like it too.”
The couple was seen in a YouTube video with their guests, sharing meals, walking on the beach, and hanging out in the living room, thus making a successful social media stunt that was less staged than most. The fans who were lucky enough to have this bizarre experience were thereby able to witness it all in person and enjoy it simultaneously.
Backlash for Supporting Danny Masterson
Kutcher and Kunis did not always make unconventional decisions only for fun. Their ex-That ’70s Show co-star Danny Masterson was found guilty in 2023 of rape and jailed for 30 years. Consequently, Masterson went through a trial and was convicted of sexual assault charges.
Both stars wrote and submitted character letters to the judge before Masterson’s sentencing. In their letters, they expressed their gratitude to Masterson and called him to be a great influence on their lives. In his letter, Kutcher described Masterson as “a very truthful and quite deliberate human being.” While, according to Kunis, he was “a lovely older brother figure who supported me to become confident and be humble.”
Once the content of these letters was discovered, outrage quickly spread. A lot of people were upset and were against the letters, among them also other celebrities. Actress Christina Ricci wrote on Instagram: “In some cases, the ones we loved and looked up to might have done terrible things. Most likely, they will not do these things to us, and we only see them as people they were to us, but that does not mean they did not do the terrible things, and to discredit the abused is a crime.”
One of the lowest points in their mutual public image was the controversy.
The Apology Video That Made More Questions Arise
After the backlash, Kutcher was on the spot and he immediately decided to resign from Thorn—an anti-trafficking organization that he started with the idea in 2009. Through a press release shared on Time, he wrote: “Abused sexual victims have been silenced for a long time, the epitome of my being now after the very character statement which I submitted questioning those victims who are brave enough to share their experiences”.
Promoted together, he and Kunis also put up an Instagram video where they apologized. As a couple, they were seen reading the script, most probably a prepared one, slowly and methodically. It was his part that Kutcher highlighted the letters only being meant for the judge’s eyes: “They were intended for a judge to read, and not to undermine the testimony of the victims, or to re-traumatize them.” While Kunis said: “We support victims. We did this through our work in the past and will continue doing so in the future.”
Unfortunately, it appeared as if the video production seemed to cause more wounds than they hoped to heal because of the rigid, even stilted way in which the video was done. Most people who watched the apology were assuming the lack of authenticity, and another group was pointing out that Kutcher had disabled the comments section – a fact that made them believe even more that there were ulterior motives behind the apology.
Closing Thoughts
From awkward first kisses and disastrous honeymoons to controversial choices that continue to spark debate, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have proven they’re anything but a typical Hollywood couple. Their love story may have begun as a sitcom plotline, but in real life, it has played out in ways stranger—and far more complicated—than fiction.
