Ashton Kutcher is well-known for his humorous film roles and funny, lighthearted real-life character. Following his roles as Michael Kelso in “That ’70s Show” and as the mastermind behind pranking MTV’s “Punk’d,” the actor rocketed to popularity.
While he has maintained chiefly a career centered on joy and humor, he has also committed his time to some severe causes behind the scenes.
According to its official website, Kutcher and his then-wife, Demi Moore, founded Thorn. This non-profit organization attempted to safeguard children from sexual exploitation via technology in 2012.
Thorn is a cause important to Kutcher’s heart. He appeared before the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2017 to attract attention to his efforts, calling it “one of the biggest honors of his life.” Together with Thorn, Kutcher is committed to assisting war-torn Ukraine.
Mila Kunis, the actor’s now-wife, was born and raised in Ukraine before relocating to America when she was eight. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kutcher and Kunis launched a GoFundMe campaign to provide emergency assistance to the country. They have raised almost $22 million as of this writing.
While Kutcher utilizes his celebrity to help make the world a better place by bringing attention to some of the world’s most serious issues and tragedies, he has also faced personal challenges. Here are some heartbreaking facts regarding Ashton Kutcher’s life.
Divorce may be traumatic for children of any age, let alone a teen. Ashton Kutcher’s parents, Larry and Diane Kutcher, divorced when he was 13.
Following the divorce, according to his Biography, Ashton and his siblings, twin brother Michael and older sister Tausha Kutcher, moved to Homestead, Iowa.
Though Ashton has not spoken publicly about his parent’s divorce, he mentioned it briefly in a 2017 speech for the Robert D. Ray Pillar of Character Award at Drake University in his native state.
In a sad interview with the Des Moines Register, he said, “When [my wife and I] had these babies… my immediate response was, I wanted to call my parents and say, ‘I’m sorry because I never realized how much you loved me.”
He also discussed his divorce from Demi Moore and how it increased his understanding of his parent’s experiences. “I had the amazing fortune of getting a divorce because I felt the impact of it, and I felt how much grief and love is in there and that it’s not nice, clean, or messy,” he explained. “Now I finally understood my parents’ divorce in a new light.”
While dealing with the aftermath of his parent’s divorce, Ashton Kutcher also had to deal with his twin brother Michael Kutcher’s chronic health problems.
According to Michael’s website, Michael had a difficult delivery and was “significantly smaller” than his twin, Christopher (better known to the world as Ashton).
According to Today, Michael was born with undeveloped lungs, couldn’t breathe independently, and weighed only four pounds, but Ashton was born as a healthy 11-pound baby.
Michael claimed that when he was a youngster, he had “developmental difficulties” that impaired his motor abilities, speech, and vision, prompting his mother, Diane Kutcher, to take him to the doctor. At the age of three, he was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy.
Things became highly stressful for the Kutcher twins when Michael suffered from heart failure when they were 13. He was only supposed to live three or four weeks after receiving the scary diagnosis.
A heart transplant thankfully saved Michael, and he has subsequently utilized his experience to fight for disability (or #Diffability) awareness with groups such as The Cerebral Palsy Foundation.
Yet, as a child, Ashton was very protective of his brother, frequently standing up to Michael’s bullies and refusing to attend hangouts unless he was included.
According to Michael, his twin didn’t want to watch him struggle, saying, “Chris would tell me, ‘I wish I could take all of this off of you — and take it myself.’”
