Ashton Kutcher's Response To 'Really, Really Painful' Experience With Demi Moore Shows How Some Men Deal With Loss
He seems to have processed his grief and moved forward.
s_bukley / Shutterstock In an interview with Esquire from January 2023, Ashton Kutcher opened up about aspects of his life he’d previously kept to himself — his health struggles, his family, and one particular experience with his ex-wife, Demi Moore.
Ashton Kutcher spoke of a ‘really, really painful’ experience he and Demi Moore shared, showing how some men handle loss.
Kutcher and Moore started dating in 2003, married in 2005, and divorced in 2013. Their 15-year age gap was a major topic of conversation when their relationship was public. Kutcher said, “The moment that information broke, my life changed,” referring to their involvement.
Kutcher and Moore’s romance was highly publicized, yet they kept certain parts of their lives private, up to a point. In 2019, Moore published a memoir, titled "Inside Out," in which she shared that she experienced a late-term pregnancy loss in 2003. Moore was 42 at the time, and Kutcher was 26.
Kutcher explained that Moore’s pregnancy loss was emotionally challenging for them to navigate.
Twenty years passed since Kutcher and Moore lost the pregnancy they’d expected to carry to term, and Kutcher is now the father of two children with his wife, Mila Kunis. During the Esquire interview, he was asked, “Do you think about that miscarriage differently now?”
“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 stated.
While he declined to go into any actual specifics of how he managed the loss at the time, Kutcher said, “Everyone deals with that in different ways.”
He expressed that losing the pregnancy felt like a missed opportunity to watch their family grow.
Marrying Moore made Kutcher into an instant stepdad to Moore’s three daughters, Rumer Willis, then 12, Scout Willis, then 10, and Tallulah Willis, then 8.
“I love kids,” Kutcher said, “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.”
Kutcher is undoubtedly allowed to keep the details of that heart-wrenching part of his life to himself. However he processed the loss, he did so in a way that eventually let him move forward, even as his marriage to Moore dissolved.
Kutcher revealed that he believed there was some greater meaning to the loss he and Moore shared. “For whatever reason, I had to have that experience,” he said.
According to a report from the National Institute of Health, it's estimated that “as many as 26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.” Miscarriages and pregnancy loss are common experiences, yet they’re still stigmatized and often kept secret.
Kutcher’s willingness to even minimally discuss the topic of his and Moore’s pregnancy loss is an example of how vital these conversations are.
The loss reverberated through various aspects of Kutcher’s life and it’s up to him to disclose what he wants. That Kutcher approached the subject at all, in spite of how painful it felt, shows the significance of sharing our very human experiences with loss.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.