Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis seem to be riding out their flop era privately. They were once Hollywood’s golden couple, and now, rumors are circulating about them moving to Europe to shake off all their bad press.
The couple (read: mostly Ashton) managed to sidestep several controversies over the years thanks to their good public standing, but ties to convicted rapist Danny Masterson and Diddy have been too glaring even for the most devout fan to ignore. Ashton and Mila were teens — 19 and 14, respectively — when they found fame on That ‘70s Show, and even Mila has hinted that their pasts are less than squeaky-clean.
“I think we both had to go through a lot in our lives to become the people that we were,” Mila said on The Howard Stern Show in 2020. “We would never be together based on the people that we used to be.” Read on to learn about all of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ controversies throughout their careers.
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ Controversies
Ashton Kutcher’s Friendship With P. Diddy
In September, Diddy was indicted on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, and he is facing more than two dozen civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault, physical violence, and drugging. The rapper has denied the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Diddy was denied bail by a New York judge and is sitting behind bars while he awaits his May 2025 trial.
Diddy’s arrest and allegations brought many of his close friends and acquaintances into question — one of whom is Ashton. The two met back in the early 2000s through MTV while Ashton was working on Punk’d and Diddy starred on Making the Band and became “fast friends,” according to Ashton.
The actor reflected on their wild past during a 2019 appearance on Hot Ones after host Sean Evans asked for a story about one of Diddy’s famous parties.
“I’ve got a lot I can’t tell,” Ashton said, pausing to silently reflect on the memories. “Can’t tell that one either. … I’m actually cycling through them. Diddy party stories, man, that was some weird memory lane thing.”
Danny Masterson’s Trial
While it was no secret that Mila and Ashton had remained close friends with Danny since their days on That ‘70s Show, the couple came under fire when it was revealed they wrote letters of support for their former costar during his 2023 sexual assault trial.
Mila called Danny an “amazing friend, confidant, and, above all, an outstanding older brother figure” while Ashton referred to him as an “excellent … role model.”
In September 2023, Danny was sentenced to 30 years to life after being convicted of raping two women. That same month, Mila and Ashton released an apology after their character letters became public.
In a video posted to social media, Ashton said the letters were written to “represent the person that we knew for 25 years,” with Mila adding that they did not want to “question the legitimacy of the judicial system or the validity of the jury’s ruling.”
The backlash led Ashton to resign as chairman of the board of Thorn, the anti-child-sex-abuse organization he cofounded in 2009 with his then-wife Demi Moore. Mila also stepped down as an observer on the organization’s board.
Problematic Quotes
The couple has been put under a microscope in recent years, and some of their previously ~charming~ anecdotes have not aged well. A 2002 group interview on The Rosie O’Donnell Show began circulating that showed Mila recalling Danny betting Ashton $10 to French kiss her while filming That ‘70s Show.
“She was 14 when we started the show. I was 19,” Ashton said at the time. “And they were like, ‘You guys are going to be making out in this scene.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Wait, this is slightly illegal.’”
Mila added, “I’ve never kissed a guy. I was a 14-year-old little girl and I was extremely scared for my life. He was very nice about it, like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Then Danny goes to him and goes, ‘Dude, I’ll give you $10 if you French kiss her.’”
More clips have circulated that are less than flattering, like during an episode of Punk’d when Ashton said about Hillary Duff, who was 15 at the time, “Hillary Duff is in Lizzie McGuire, she also has an album out, she’s going to be in a movie called Cheaper by the Dozen, and she’s one of the girls that we’re all waiting for to turn 18 — along with the Olsen twins.”
Ashton’s Cheating History
Ashton was married to Demi Moore from 2005 to 2013, with their official split happening in 2011 after reports surfaced that he allegedly cheated on her.
In Demi’s 2019 memoir, Inside Out, she recounted two specific affairs he had during their marriage, including one tryst that allegedly occurred on their sixth wedding anniversary. Demi claimed Ashton tried to “deflect blame” from his infidelity by pointing to the couple having past threesomes as the catalyst for his behavior.
Following the release of his ex-wife’s memoir, Ashton tweeted, “I was about to push the button on a really snarky tweet. Then I saw my son, daughter, and wife and I deleted it.”
A source later clarified to Us Weekly that Kutcher was not “mad or disappointed” by Inside Out and he was in a “very different place” in life.
“It was a hard process when their marriage ended, and he was very much aware of it,” the source said at the time. “But they both needed to move on and find their way separately. It’s a chapter of his life that he has moved on from.”
Cultural Appropriation
In 2012, Ashton appeared as a character named Raj in an ad for Popchips, where he wore brown-face makeup and spoke with a fake Indian accent to play a fictional Bollywood producer.
The train wreck commercial was eventually pulled in the wake of the backlash, but people were reminded of it again when Aziz Ansari featured an image of Ashton within a montage of racist Indian caricatures during the fourth episode of Master of None, titled “Indians on TV.”
