Details About Ashton Kutcher And Demi Moore's Relationship And Why They Split
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher became tabloid darlings as soon as they began dating in 2003. Demi Moore was an established actor with blockbuster films such as "Ghost" and "G.I. Jane" on her resume, and Ashton Kutcher was the heartthrob sitcom star of "That '70s Show" 15 years Moore's junior. The pair was seen out and about together, often engaged in public displays of affection, seemingly the ideal couple. They wed in 2005, and Kutcher became the stepfather to Moore's three daughters. Kutcher was also reportedly friendly with Moore's ex-husband, Bruce Willis, making the blended family seem all the more blissful and delightfully unconventional.
But behind closed doors, the relationship went through many ups and downs, ranging from tragic losses to sexual escapades to infidelity. Moore and Kutcher split in 2011, and their divorce was finalized in 2013. Both parties seemed to suffer as a result. Read on to find out more about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's relationship and what went wrong to finally tear them apart.
It was not love at first sight for the couple
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were first introduced at a dinner party in 2003, but sparks weren't flying right away. In fact, Kutcher seemed more interested in another dinner guest, as Moore explained during an interview on "Live with Regis and Kelly." "The first night I met him, he didn't have two words to say to me — he had a singular focus, and it was on somebody else," she revealed (via Daily Mail).
However, the actor eventually did get Kutcher's attention. When the two met again at a play, Moore was wearing what she referred to in Harper's Bazaar as "the dress that gets results." Moore's Proenza Schouler cocktail dress seemed to do the trick as she went on to say, "It was an effective evening. It was a life-changing evening."
According to Moore, the relationship began with intensity, as she described feeling an instant connection with Kutcher. "I knew it had the potential to be something special right away," she said. Kutcher echoed the sentiment in a 2006 interview with Parade, saying, "I could be totally comfortable on my first date with Demi. It was just there." He also gushed about their happy relationship, claiming they weren't a couple who fought. "We had one argument in the first three months of dating, and since then, we haven't had any," he shared (via CBS News).
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore joked about their age gap
One reason Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's relationship grabbed the public's attention was their 15-year age gap. When the pair began dating, Moore was 40, and Kutcher was 25. When Kutcher hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2005, the couple took the opportunity to poke fun at themselves, with Moore dressing up as a much older woman, complete with aging makeup and a grey-haired wig. "My support hose are cutting off my circulation," she quipped as Kutcher guided her onstage.
But Moore was not entirely comfortable with the media's age obsession. "I don't know. It's so silly," she told ABC News, noting that no one seemed to care that her ex-husband, Bruce Willis, had gone on to marry a woman 23 years his junior. The double standard was staggering. In her Harper's Bazaar interview, Moore spoke about disliking the term "cougar" and joked that she preferred to be called a puma. "It has a sweeter quality, more elegant," she explained.
Demi Moore suffered a miscarriage early in the relationship
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher would go on to weather their fair share of drama, but what happened early on in their relationship was a true tragedy. Moore became pregnant with the couple's child but later miscarried at 6 months. They had even picked out a name for the baby, a girl they planned to call Chaplin Ray.
Kutcher reflected on the loss during a 2023 interview with Esquire. "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 shared. "Everyone deals with that in different ways."
For Moore's part, she revealed in her 2019 memoir "Inside Out" that she was "decimated" by the experience and felt that Kutcher had a difficult time relating to her grief. "First of all, he hadn't carried this baby," she wrote. "And second, he was in his twenties at the time: he wasn't remotely late to the game of fatherhood. His possibilities were not running out..."
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore wed in 2005
Despite enduring such a painful loss while dating, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher went on to get married in September of 2005. According to People, the wedding was something of a secret, and preparations weren't fully in place until the day before the ceremony. "It all came together at the very last minute," a source confirmed.
The couple wed in a small ceremony at their home in Beverly Hills. A source told People, "It was incredibly unpretentious, representing who they really are." Among the guests were Moore's three daughters, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah, and Moore's ex-husband and father of her children, Bruce Willis.
Of course, the marriage meant that Kutcher had become the stepfather of Moore's children, something he reflected on in his Esquire interview. "I was twenty-six, bearing the responsibility of an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a twelve-year-old," he said. "That's how some teen parents must experience their twenties." But he wasn't complaining, adding, "I wouldn't have gotten married to a woman that had three kids if I didn't love kids."
The couple was openly affectionate on Twitter
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were not shy about openly expressing their love for one another. The couple was especially affectionate on X, then Twitter, which led to Time naming them "our first Twitter celeb couple."
In a 2010 essay for Harper's Bazaar, Kutcher likened declarations of love via social media to more traditional romantic gestures. "In some ways, it's no different than sending flowers to the office: You are declaring your love for everyone to see. Who doesn't like to be publicly adored?" the actor wrote.
Moore and Kutcher seemed happy to give fans a glimpse into their relationship, referring to each other by cute nicknames like "baby boo" and "pillow partner" in their tweets. A 2009 tweet from Kutcher read, "watching my wife steam my suit while wearing a bikini. I love God!" Moore was just as lovey-dovey towards her man on the platform, tweeting, "grabbing my hubby and putting on my birthday suit.....to snuggle.......goooood night."
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore started a charity together
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were clearly smitten with one another, and their love inspired them to give back to those in need. In fact, for Valentine's Day in 2010, the couple started a charity together in lieu of exchanging gifts. The pair started the DNA Foundation, which aimed to help victims of human trafficking. "There are 350,000 trafficked people here in the United States," Kutcher told Reuters. "We're sending the girls flowers and making them our Valentines so they know that someone can love them without asking for anything back."
The couple used social media to bring attention to the horrors of human trafficking and to spread the word about their foundation. "You have to acknowledge a problem exists before you can actually go about finding a solution," Moore said during an appearance on "Piers Morgan Tonight." "And what we've found is that most people aren't even aware of what's going on" (via CNN). The foundation, now called Thorn, continues to operate, focusing on protecting children from sexual abuse.
The couple tried again to have children of their own
Having a miscarriage six months into her pregnancy did not deter Demi Moore from trying again to start a family with Ashton Kutcher. Moore revealed in her memoir that she underwent IVF treatments but to no avail. The sadness she felt took a toll on her as she began to feel desperate. "I really lost sight of everything that was right in front of me, which is the family I had," she revealed in a "Good Morning America" interview with Diane Sawyer.
Moore also shared that her pain and singular focus on having another child put a strain on her and Kutcher's relationship. "I think the weight that it put on Ashton ... it's kind of a natural thing to pull back when somebody's, you know, clinging too tight," she explained. The situation also hurt Moore's daughters, especially Rumer, who admitted, "It was like, 'Oh, well. We're not enough,'" during a 2019 episode of Red Table Talk.
According to Demi Moore, the couple opened up their relationship
Things began to go awry at some point during Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's marriage, despite Moore's attempts to be the perfect wife. In her memoir, she revealed that she "went into contortions to try to fit the mold of the woman he wanted his wife to be," which included going along with Kutcher's desire to open up the relationship sexually.
"I put him first," Moore wrote, "so when he expressed his fantasy of bringing a third person into our bed, I didn't say no. I wanted to show him how great and fun I could be." However, the experiences were ultimately not the best for the relationship, and Moore was left with regret. "They were good people, but it was still a mistake," Moore wrote about the people she and Kutcher invited into their bedroom. Although she had been a willing participant in the sexual adventures, Moore admitted that the threesomes caused her to feel a great deal of shame.
Ashton Kutcher admitted to cheating on Demi Moore
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's relationship seemed to hit a rocky point when the couple began to expand their sex life to include other people. But the threesomes they had created an unintended outcome. "Because we had brought in a third party into our relationship, Ashton said, that blurred the lines and, to some extent, justified what he's done," Moore wrote in her book, referring to the fact that Kutcher had cheated on her.
In 2011, a 22-year-old woman named Sara Leal went public about how she and Kutcher had sex following an all-night party at The Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. According to a report by US Weekly, the incident occurred on Moore and Kutcher's sixth wedding anniversary, although Kutcher reportedly told Leal he and Moore were separated at the time. Leal also claimed that she and Kutcher did not practice safe sex and that "He was good. It wasn't weird or perverted."
Moore wrote in her memoir that she believed Leal's story. "I knew she wasn't lying," she shared, adding, "He admitted it right away." Kutcher later spoke about the cheating allegations with Esquire, saying, "You own the s*** you did wrong, and you go forward."
Trouble in the marriage took a toll on Demi Moore
Infidelity seems to have been the last straw, as Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher announced their split shortly after he was accused of cheating. But even before the divorce was finalized in 2013, the marriage had taken its toll on Moore's health and well-being. Moore, who had been sober for decades, suddenly found herself drinking again and taking prescription pills, as well as synthetic marijuana, which landed her in the hospital. "She wasn't sleeping as well, didn't seem to be eating, and looked really gaunt," a source told People in 2012.
Moore opened up about the pain she experienced during her interview with Diane Sawyer, explaining, "I think the thing if I were to look back, I would say I blinded myself and I lost myself." She added that it wasn't only the end of her relationship with Kutcher that was "devastating." "It was really about my whole life," she said.
Kutcher didn't leave the marriage unscathed either. "Nothing makes you feel like a failure like divorce," he told Esquire. "Divorce feels like a wholesale f***ing failure. You failed at marriage."
Ashton Kutcher stayed in touch with Demi Moore's daughter Rumer
Although Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher split in November 2011, Kutcher remained close with at least one of Moore's daughters, Rumer Willis. In 2012, Willis, who was pursuing a singing career, performed a show at Hollywood's Sayer's Club, with Kutcher cheering her on from the audience and snapping pics with his phone.
In 2014, Willis told Access Hollywood that she was still in touch with her ex-stepfather, even congratulating him on the birth of his daughter, Wyatt Isabelle, with his current wife, Mila Kunis. "I reached out to him when he had his baby the other day, which was so awesome. I saw photos of her. She's very cute," Willis said (via HuffPost).
She also explained that she'd been reflecting on Kutcher and her mother's relationship, which she was able to see from a new perspective. "It's nice as I've gotten older, I realized the other day that he was a year younger than me [now] when he and my mom started going out," she said, adding, "That would be like me meeting someone who already had three teenage kids and kind of going into that whole situation was crazy."
Ashton Kutcher was angry about Demi Moore's memoir
In 2019, after coming to a place where she had reclaimed her sobriety and wellness, Demi Moore released her memoir, "Inside Out," which revealed plenty of bombshells about her life and relationship with Ashton Kutcher. Ahead of the book's publication, Moore told The New York Times, "It's exciting, and yet I feel very vulnerable," adding, "There is no cover of a character. It's not somebody else's interpretation of me."
While Moore was empowered by telling her story, Kutcher was less than thrilled about certain details of his personal life becoming so public. He shared with Esquire his dismay, stating, "I was f***ing pissed." He explained, "I'd finally gotten to a place where the press had really laid off me and Mila [Kunis], and my life and my family. And then the next day, [the paparazzi] are at my kids' school." But he acknowledged that overall, life was good, and he was unwilling to linger in the negativity. "I don't want to open anything up in that realm," he said.
Ashton Kutcher's current wife, Mila Kunis, starred in a commercial with Demi Moore
In 2022, it seemed tensions had finally died down between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, as Moore and Kutcher's current wife, Mila Kunis, starred in a commercial together. Kunis and Kutcher, who met while starring on "That '70s Show," married in 2015 and share two children.
The ad for AT&T, which aired during the Super Bowl, featured two women at a high school reunion who approached the stage at the same time as the school's "Most Admired Alum" award was about to be presented. It turns out to be neither of them, so they share some awkward banter, including Kunis' comment, "We have a lot in common."
It turns out Moore and Kunis really did attend the same high school, Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, and it was Kunis who reached out to Moore with ideas for the commercial. "Who knew being a Fairfax alum would have brought this unexpected opportunity to come together with Mila in such a fun and playful way?" Moore told Entertainment Tonight.