Today, Ashton Kutcher is happily married to and shares two kids with Mila Kunis, but in a new interview, the actor recalled the heartbreaks he faced in his previous marriage to Demi Moore.
The No Strings Attached star, 44, married Moore, 60, in 2005—their 16-year age gap drawing skepticism and making headlines all over Hollywood. At the time, the Striptease actress was already mom to three daughters—Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Willis—from her marriage to fellow actor Bruce Willis.
“I was twenty-six, bearing the responsibility of an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a twelve-year-old,” Kutcher said in his interview with Esquire. “That’s how some teen parents must experience their twenties.” (Kutcher has maintained a close relationship with the three women despite his split from Moore.)
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Soon after they began dating, in 2003, Moore got pregnant with a baby girl who would have been named Chaplin Ray. Kutcher recalled wanting a child with the actress so badly, and then being crushed when she suffered a miscarriage six months in.
“Losing a kid that you think you’re going to have, and that close to thinking you’re going to have a kid, is really, really painful,” he said. “Everyone deals with that in different ways.”
He and Moore separated in 2011 and finalized their divorce in 2013.
“Nothing makes you feel like a failure like divorce,” Kutcher said.
“I love kids,” he told the magazine. “I wouldn’t have gotten married to a woman that had three kids if I didn’t love kids. The idea of having another kid would have been incredible.”
Of losing their baby, he added, “For whatever reason, I had to have that experience.”
Kutcher is now dad to daughter Wyatt, 8, and son Dimitri, 6, with That ’70s Show costar and wife Kunis, 39. The two married in 2015.
Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper’s Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets.
