The Tragedy Of Ashton Kutcher Is So Sad

A murdered date, jail time, and a life  threatening health condition — Ashton Kutcher may lead a glamorous life, but his  rise to fame has been marked by tragedy. Ashton Kutcher and his fraternal twin  brother, Michael, were born on February 7, 1978, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. While Ashton  weighed a healthy 11 pounds at birth, his twin weighed only 4 pounds and had underdeveloped  lungs. In fact, Michael wasn't even breathing when he was born. Michael survived this but  faced more health issues as

a young child. At age 3, he was diagnosed with  cerebral palsy. He told Today, "I had all of the stereotypes that  come with having a disability. I was called every name in the book on the playground." When the twins were in eighth grade,  Michael suffered another scary health setback. He was diagnosed with an enlarged  heart and given just weeks to live unless he could receive a transplant. This hit  Ashton hard, and he was willing to do anything to save his brother's life,  even if it meant sa

crificing his own. "If anyone's a match, I'm a match." Thankfully, a donor was found within 24 hours  and Michael's heart transplant was successful. Ashton Kutcher is known for his role as Michael  Kelso on That '70s Show. But while Kelso was depicted as a stereotypical dim-witted hot  guy, Kutcher had a bright future ahead of him as a teen. He was a football player, and his  grades were good enough that he aspired to study at MIT or Purdue University. But a silly prank  proved more costly than

he could have imagined, jeopardizing many aspects of his  life. He told The Seattle Times, "I was 18 and I was a really good student  and a good kid and didn't get in trouble, and then I broke into my high school." Kutcher and his cousin broke  into the school late at night, and Kutcher was caught leaving the scene.  He spent the night in jail and received a pretty harsh punishment: 180 hours of  community service, three years probation, and a third-degree burglary conviction.  According to the

actor, the incident not only painted him as the town outcast but had  serious repercussions in his life. He explained, "My girlfriend broke up with me. Then  I lost my college scholarships and got kicked out of the National Honor  Society and the choir and the play." But Kutcher revealed that the experience ended  up being a wake-up call for him. He went on, "Getting in trouble, learning a life lesson  — it straightened me out pretty quick." In 2001, Ashton Kutcher was enjoying fame  with starri

ng roles on That '70s Show and in the film Dude, Where's My Car?  But the good times were marred by a terrible tragedy when a woman Kutcher was  casually dating was murdered in her home. "This is one of the nation's  most notorious crimes." Kutcher met 22-year-old fashion student  Ashley Ellerin {ELL-er-in} through friends and the pair got along well. According to  E! News, they went on a few dates and had plans to attend a Grammy-watching party at  a pal's house on the night of February 21st, 2

001. Kutcher called Ellerin on his way to her  place but she didn't answer the phone. When he knocked on her door, there was no response.  Kutcher noted that Ellerin's car was in the driveway and thought she might be ignoring  him because he was late. He looked through a window and saw what he assumed to be red  wine spilled on the carpet. He later found out it was blood. Ellerin had been stabbed  47 times after getting out of the shower. Ellerin's killer, Michael Gargiulo, known as  "The Hollyw

ood Ripper," was found guilty and sentenced to death in a trial that included  Kutcher's testimony. According to People, Kutcher contacted police the  day after Ellerin's murder, knowing he had been at the scene of the  crime. He said on the witness stand, "My fingerprints are on this door and I  was freaking out. I told (an officer), 'Let me tell you what happened.'" In 2003, Ashton Kutcher starred alongside  Brittany Murphy in the rom-com Just Married. "Action!" The pair had obvious chemistry

on-screen and  apparently off-screen as well: They began dating after filming wrapped. In an interview  with People at the time, Kutcher explained, "When we were doing the movie, we were just friends. And now  we've been hanging out a lot more." During a press tour for Just Married, the  couple seemed smitten. Murphy said of Kutcher, "He's an extraordinary person. Once you  realize he does one thing amazingly, you're then shocked, and you realize that  he does another thing equally as amazingly.

" Despite the love between them, Kutcher  and Murphy split in the spring of 2003. Six years later, Murphy died suddenly at the  age of 32. As coroner Ed Winter told People, "She was really sick with pneumonia, very anemic, and she was taking medication,  and all that combined killed her." Kutcher expressed his grief in an  interview with Nightline, saying, "She was like the person who walked in the  room and she was always the first person to dance. And I just try to connect to that  and celebra

te who she was and how she was, and not make sense of it, 'cause there  is no sense of making sense of it." Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore made headlines  when they began dating in 2003. Moore was 15 years older than Kutcher, but the age  gap didn't seem to be an issue for the couple. They seemed blissfully happy  and destined for family life together. But all was not well behind the smiles in  the couple's paparazzi pics. Kutcher and Moore suffered a devastating loss  together not long after the

y began dating. Moore revealed in her memoir  Inside Out that she was pregnant with Kutcher's child but miscarried  six months into her pregnancy. "Because there was no heartbeat." Sadly, Moore blamed herself. She wrote, "It was my fault, I felt for sure: If  only I hadn't opened the door to drinking, I never would have lost the baby. Even worse, I was still smoking when I found out I was  pregnant, and it took me a few weeks to quit completely. I was wracked with guilt and  convinced what had h

appened was my doing." Kutcher reflected on the painful ordeal  in a 2023 interview with Esquire, saying, "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.  Everyone deals with that in different ways." Kutcher now shares two children with current wife, Mila Kunis, and Moore has three grown  children with ex-husband Bruce Willis. Despite the difficulties the couple endured  at the beginning of their relationship,

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore went on to tie the knot  in 2005. It appeared they were happy together, and Kutcher spent time with Moore's daughters,  Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah. Kutcher even enjoyed something like a friendship with Moore's  ex-husband Bruce Willis, telling Live magazine, "We go scuba-diving, skiing, we  hang out with the girls together, we watch movies, we talk about sports." But Kutcher and Moore's marriage was plagued by  rumors of infidelity, something Moore spoke at length a

bout in her memoir. According to the  actor, she and Kutcher engaged in threesomes, which may have led to Kutcher straying  from the relationship. Moore wrote, "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." In 2011, a woman named Sara Leal told  Us Weekly that she and Kutcher had sex on he and Moore's six-year anniversary, claiming, "He just came up and kissed me." Leal, who was 22 at the time,

also  stated that Kutcher had told her he and Moore were separated. According  to Moore, she believed Leal's account. "He admitted it right away." Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's marriage  lasted long by Hollywood standards, but it could not withstand  Kutcher's infidelity. Not long after the cheating allegations came  out, the couple announced their split. The divorce was not finalized until several  years after the split was announced, however, due to financial disputes. Moore was  initially

seeking spousal support from Kutcher to the tune of millions,  according to E! News. Ultimately, the ex-spouses reached a settlement, with neither  receiving financial support from the other. Kutcher later admitted to Esquire that the  divorce took a toll on him, explaining, "Nothing makes you feel like a  failure like divorce. Divorce feels like a wholesale f---ing  failure. You failed at marriage." After years of appearing in sitcoms and rom-coms,  Ashton Kutcher took on a serious role portray

ing Steve Jobs in the 2013 film Jobs. And he  took the role seriously indeed, getting into character by mimicking the Apple co-founder's  eccentric eating habits, including fasting and following a fruitarian diet. But what worked for  Jobs ended up landing Kutcher in the hospital. On a 2019 episode of Hot Ones, Kutcher  explained what went wrong, saying, "I started just drinking  carrot juice like nonstop, like, all day long. Two weeks before we went  to start shooting, all of a sudden I had thi

s, like, pain in my back. [...] I  ended up in the hospital on, like, the maximum dose of Dilaudid because my  pancreas was, like, crazy out of whack." Kutcher's wife, Mila Kunis, appeared  on her own episode of Hot Ones in 2021 and shared her take on her husband's  carrot-induced health scare, saying, "Oh, he's downplaying it. He was so  dumb. He also, I think, only ate, like, grapes at one point. He ended up  in the hospital twice with pancreatitis." Ashton Kutcher is no stranger to health  is

sues, but in 2022, he opened up about an emergency that truly frightened him. During  an episode of Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge, the actor explained that  he had been diagnosed with a rare form of vasculitis that temporarily impaired  his vision and hearing. He shared, "I had this weird, super rare form of  vasculitis, that like knocked out my vision, it knocked out my hearing, it  knocked out like all my equilibrium." "You want to reclaim the  health that you once had." Vasculi

tis is a condition that causes  the inflammation of blood vessels, which can potentially lead to organ  and tissue damage. Kutcher revealed that it took him nearly a year to  fully recover. The experience also left him questioning if he'd ever  have a normal life again. He said, "You don't really appreciate it  until it's gone. Until you go, 'I don't know if I'm ever going to be able  to see again, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to hear again, I don't know if  I'm ever going to be abl

e to walk again.'" But there was a silver lining to Kutcher's  health scare because it seemed to give him a fresh perspective on adversity. He told Grylls, "You start surfing on top of your problems  instead of living underneath them." In 2022, Kutcher ran the New York City marathon, proving that his health woes will not  stop him from accomplishing his goals. In September 2023, Ashton Kutcher made a serious  error in judgment when he and his wife Mila Kunis wrote letters in support of Danny Mas

terson  ahead of Masterson's rape trial. Masterson, who co-starred alongside Kutcher  and Kunis on That '70s Show was subsequently found guilty of raping two women  and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. While Kutcher and Masterson had been close  friends during their time as co-workers and stayed friendly in the ensuing years,  Kutcher's character letter was a woeful misstep, and the public took notice. Kutcher and  Kunis posted an apology video on Instagram. "We are aware of the pain tha

t has  been caused by the character letters that we wrote on behalf of Danny Masterson." Many criticized the apology, insinuating it was not an apology at all but an attempt to mitigate  the damage to Kutcher and Kunis' public image. The backlash caused Kutcher to step  down from his position at Thorn, an anti-child sex abuse organization  that he had founded with Demi Moore. In a statement published on the  organization's website, Kutcher wrote, "I cannot allow my error in judgment to distract 

from our efforts and the children we serve." It remains to be seen whether the  public will truly forgive Kutcher, but he seems to be taking  steps in the right direction.