The Reason Ashton Kutcher Was “Pissed” About Ex Demi’s Memoir

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were one of Hollywood's most controversial couples throughout the early 2000s. Even though they are long done, secrets from their relationship are still being spilled.

Flashing Lights

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were the talk of the town while they were dating. The public was completely consumed by the couple and their every move. So, the public's wish was the paparazzi's command.

However, their relationship was marked by scandals and rumors. After almost a decade together, Demi and Ashton called it quits. But what really happened between the once-happy couple? Years later, Demi spilled the piping hot tea about what went down. But let's go back to the beginning.

Young & Ambitious

Before there was Ashton Kutcher famous actor, there was Christopher Ashton Kutcher from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He grew up with an older sister and a twin brother, Michael. Throughout their childhood, Michael had health complications. Ashton got involved with drama and theater during high school to get away from it all.

Kutcher didn't become an actor right away. He attended the University of Iowa as a biochemical engineering major. Then, a model scout suggested he enter the "Fresh Faces of Iowa" competition. Kutcher won and went to NYC as a prize. Afterward, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and things were just getting spicy.

Hello, Wisconsin!

Things went from 0 to 100 real quick with Kutcher. When he got to LA, he was cast as Michael Kelso in That '70s Show. Kelso was your stereotypical jock character who had an on-again-off-again relationship with Jackie Burkhart, played by the incomparable Mila Kunis. Kutcher also hosted the pranking celebrity series, Punk'd.

Ashton was becoming more in demand by the minute. He starred in films like The Guardian and Dude, Where's My Car? He also replaced Charlie Sheen on the hit comedy Two and a Half Men. Most recently, he made a special guest appearance in That '90s Show, a reboot of the show that launched him into stardom. Ashton was making it big.

Demi From Roswell

Ashton wasn't the only one destined for the stars. It is hard to think of Demi as anything besides one of the biggest names of this generation, but before she became that, she was a regular girl from Roswell, New Mexico. She was born as Demi Gene Guynes, and she constantly moved across the States because of her stepdad's job.

When she was a teenager, Demi signed up for drama classes, and she was immediately hooked. Just like her husband-to-be, she also did a bit of modeling and signed with the Elite Modeling Agency. Demi fell in love with and married musician Freddy Moore and began using his last name as her stage name.

Becoming a Star

Demi started in smaller roles, like in General Hospital and St. Elmo's Fire. It wasn't until she landed a role in About Last Night that her career took off. From there, she received a Golden Globe nom for Ghost and continued being in hit after hit, like Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men, just to namedrop a couple.

During the mid-90s, Moore was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. She had the world at her fingertips. At the peak of her career, she shaved her head off for her iconic role in G.I. Jane. Out of seemingly nowhere, she took a break - only to return a few years later, more powerful than ever. 

Date Night

Hollywood's favorite playboy, Ashton Kutcher, shocked the public when he was spotted out to dinner with Demi Moore in Los Angeles. He was 25, while she was 41 at the time. They were seen at a trendy restaurant with a few friends. Only two weeks later, they spent 2003 Memorial Day weekend together in Miami.

They enjoyed the nightlife in Miami. A witness told PEOPLE that the lovebirds shared a "very romantic" kiss. Nothing had been confirmed yet, but things were heating up between the two. Everyone couldn't help but to freak out over the new couple. The people needed to know what was going on...

Putting a Ring on It

The rumors turned out to be true. Ashton and Demi were the hottest new couple in Hollywood. The media could not get enough of the lovebirds. Everything they did was made into a headline. One rumor speculated that they had eloped in Mexico, but it turned out to be false.

When they finally did tie the knot, it was after two years of dating in a small ceremony with their closest friends and family. They were wed on September 24, 2005, at their Beverly Hills home. One guest told PEOPLE, "It was a beautiful wedding." While another talked about how much "love" there was at the nuptials.

The 15-Year Age Gap

There was a major elephant in the room, and everyone was talking about it. Their 15-year age gap was on everyone's mind. So, instead of letting it get to them, the twosome dealt with it in their own hilarious way that everyone saw right on their television.

Kutcher was set to host Saturday Night Live when they decided to address the rumors about them. While he performed his opening monologue, he introduced Demi to the audience. She had her makeup done to look like she was in her 80s! She walked to the stage using a walker, and Ashton continued on with the show.

Revealing the Dirt

Demi and Ashton were the couple everyone wanted to be. They were talented, smart, and sexy. They seemed like they were madly in love. Then, everything came collapsing down. The couple divorced in 2013. No one knew what had happened between them, but that didn't stop the rumors from spreading.

It was radio silence from the former couple. Then, everything changed. Six years after their divorce, Moore released her explosive memoir Inside Out. Within the 272 pages, she revealed what actually happened between herself and Ashton. So, what went down?

Feeling Young, Again

Moore started from the very beginning of her relationship with Kutcher. She wrote, "He was 25. I was 40. But I'm telling you: we couldn't feel it. We were totally in sync, from our very first conversation..." Their 15-year age gap did not bother her one bit.

Demi was getting a second chance at young love. She continued, "When I met Ashton it almost felt like a do-over, like I could just go back in time and experience what it was like to be young, with him -- much more so than I'd ever been able to experience it when I was actually in my twenties."

Down on One Knee

Moore found out that she was pregnant. She told Kutcher, and it prompted his next actions. Demi recalled, "He asked me to go down to the beach to watch the sunset, and then he got down on one knee and presented me with a beautiful vintage Cartier ring. I was overwhelmed."

Moore was hesitant at first, telling Kutcher that she had to think about it. She didn't want their potential baby to be the only reason that he married her. She wrote, "But I loved him. And I knew he loved me. And I knew this baby would cement our family, bond us all on the deepest level. By the end of the night, I'd said yes."

Family Over Everything

When Ashton and Demi got hitched, he had become part of an already established family. Moore had three girls, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Belle, from her previous marriage to action star Bruce Willis. Moore and Willis always put their girls first - and now Kutcher was part of that promise, too.

Moore said about her beau, "Ashton's relationship with his own mother is really wonderful, so it made the transition to being with a woman with daughters something he didn't bat an eye at." Kutcher said about his relationship with the girls, "We talk about everything. It's amazing." Ashton was waiting for his turn to be a dad.

A Heartbroken Demi

The couple was trying to become parents when Moore received the worst kind of news a mother-to-be could get. "Almost six months into my pregnancy, right at the moment when we were going to start telling everyone, we went to the doctor's office." She continued, "He did his usual ultrasound, but this time, there was no heartbeat."

Moore wrote about the unbearable grief she felt losing her unborn child. She recalled, "Ashton did his best to connect with me in my grief. He tried to be there for me during the miscarriage, but he couldn't really understand what I was feeling." However, there was still a glimmer of hope.

“Desperate”

Demi wasn't ready to give up yet. Even though she went through a painful loss, she wanted to be a parent with Ashton. In her memoir, she wrote, "I was still desperate to have a baby with him." Ashton was open to exploring other ways to have a baby together, but Demi wanted to carry the baby.

"I wanted to be the fertile woman who could have his baby," she wrote. The unfortunate truth was that they were having trouble conceiving a baby naturally. They had to find another way, so they looked at options like IVF treatment, an egg donor, or a surrogate. No stone was left unturned.

A Hit to the Heart

In a massive blow to Demi's heart, Ashton appeared to have changed his mind about having children. She recalled in her memoir, "Ashton told me, 'I don't think I can do this, and I don't know if this is working.' I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me."

He said this after she had found a suitable egg donor. She continued to write, "I asked him why he'd let me research a donor, go through this painful prolonged process, and make myself vulnerable in this way if he wasn't up for it. His response was simple: 'I never thought you'd go through with it.'"

Turning a Fantasy Into Reality

She was still willing to go to whatever length to make her marriage work. There was a little fantasy that Kutcher wanted to turn into a reality, so Moore agreed to make it happen. "I wanted to show him how great and fun I could be." She continued, "There were two different people we opened our relationship to…."

Her 20/20 vision of the future gave her a new perspective on what had gone on. Moore wrote, "They were good people, but it was still a mistake. Part of the point of monogamy is the energy of somebody making the sacrifice or the choice for you… As soon as another person is brought in, you are no longer being held in that sacred spot."

No More Options

Moore wanted to give her all to this marriage. She needed to make this marriage last. She confessed in her diary, "I wanted this marriage to work, and I was willing to do whatever it took, to jump through any hoop." Unfortunately, it seemed that no matter what she did, they were already heading toward a downward spiral.

She was at a crossroads. Moore could keep going on the downward spiral or try to create the magic from the beginning of their relationship. There was more bad news coming for the couple. So, hold on tight and keep scrolling to see what was in store for them.

Cheating Rumors

At the time, the couple denied any rumors of cheating. However, when Demi released her memoir Inside Out, she revealed the truth. "I remember the night they met. We were at a bowling alley with Rumer, and when we went to switch out our shoes, she gave him her number on a napkin. Or that's what he told me at the time."

When they returned home, Kutcher showed Moore the napkin. "That is just gross. We were there with our kid, and she was there with her mother and her sister!" Moore recalled her reaction from that night. Only later did she find out that Kutcher had invited the 21-year-old girl from the bowling alley into their home when she was out of town.

Mistakes Made

Demi relived the cheating scandal in her memoir, including what her ex's shocking response was to being found out. She wrote, "Because we had brought a third party into our relationship, Ashton said, that blurred the lines and, to some extent, justified what he'd done."

She continued, "I think he felt remorse, but he was also looking for a way to deflect blame, to maintain his own perception of himself as a decent family guy." Demi confessed, "In retrospect, I think all of this was his way of trying to get out of our marriage."

Trying To Be Someone Else

Moore also had a problematic relationship with substances, and she struggled to control it. Before she filmed St. Elmo's Fire, the film's director, Joel Schumacher, and two producers made her check into rehab for 15 days. She also talked about her obsession with working out before filming A Few Good Men in her memoir.

"I didn't feel like I could stop exercising," she recalled. Her marriage to Kutcher did not help her problem, either. "I wanted to be that girl. The girl who could have a glass of wine at dinner, or do a tequila shot at a party... So I tried to become that: a fun, normal girl."

Rock Bottom

Demi hit rock bottom on her 45th birthday. "Late that night, we all ended up in the hot tub... If other people hadn't been there, I would have drowned," she admitted in Inside Out. Ashton had to carry her back to bed. She recalled how he was completely distraught over what happened.

"But it was also confusing: Ashton had encouraged me to go in this direction. When I went too far, though, he let me know he felt by showing a picture he'd taken of me [while intoxicated]," she remembered. Thinking about it later, it occurred to her that her husband had been shaming her and not making a joke.

Another Woman

There was another storm brewing. A Google alert notified Moore of her husband's second cheating instance. He did this while she was away working! The cherry on top is that it was also over the weekend of their 6th wedding anniversary. He had gone to San Diego with another woman. Demi called him the second she found out.

"He admitted it right away," she wrote. During an interview on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, Moore remarked, "And I think my response was, 'Are you f---ing kidding me?' That was it. And I think I could barely take a breath." After that, she had to muster up her strength because she had to walk the red carpet.

The Show Must Go On

"Then I had to hang up and go walk the red carpet praying with every step that this information hadn't gone wide yet, that nobody would thrust a microphone in my face and ask how I felt about my husband of 6 years [seeing] a 21-year-old he'd been hanging out with in a hot tub the weekend of our anniversary," she wrote.

"I really thought I might throw up," she recalled. At every turn when she could have given up, Demi persevered. She walked the red carpet and promoted the miniseries she had directed for Lifetime. She forced herself to smile through it all, and nobody could tell what was happening on the inside.

Splitting Up

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher called it quits on their relationship. After 6 years of marriage and 8 years together, they released separate statements announcing the end on November 17, 2011. Although their relationship was filled with its fair share of troubles, this was still upsetting news to share.

Maybe they could work things out? PEOPLE reported that the couple had been seen together a few weeks after the cheating scandal. But they couldn't figure out a way forward. They went their separate ways. Demi took a few years to heal before she was able to speak about their relationship again.

Meet Mila Kunis

Before his divorce from Moore was finalized, Kutcher had already found himself a new lady, his former costar Mila Kunis. It probably crushed Demi to hear that the That '70s Show alum had begun to date. Meanwhile, fans were happy that the pair whose characters were in love now found themselves in the same position.

It really was love. Mila and Ashton got married and have two kids, Wyatt Isabelle and Dimitri Portwood. They preferred to keep their lives private and away from tabloids. A complete 180 from what Kutcher's life was like with Demi. Ashton and Mila were in for a rude awakening.

Letting the Truth Out

Demi was ready to tell her side of the story. In September 2019, she released her chilling memoir Inside Out. She revealed never-before-told stories about her entire life, from her childhood to her three marriages. As we know, she held nothing back about what happened with her and Kutcher.

Everyone held their breaths as they waited for Ashton to say something, anything. It took over a year for him to respond. He told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast, "There's no badness. It's all good." We found that hard to believe. And with new information released, it appears it wasn't the whole truth...

Ashton Responds

It took years to go by for Ashton to say his piece. He finally addressed his true feelings about his ex-wife's tell-all memoir when he sat down with Esquire for an interview. When the writer brought up Inside Out, Ashton didn't hold anything back this time.

"I was f---ing pissed," he admitted, then continued, "I'd finally gotten to a place where the press had really laid off me and Mila, and my life and my family. And then the next day, [the paparazzi] are at my kids' school." He managed to stop himself from carrying on. He said, "I don't want to open anything up in that realm."

Mila’s Take

Mila was not afraid to share her opinion on everything that went down with Ashton, either. In his interview with Esquire, Ashton recounted what the mom of his children said to him about his behavior at that time. "You were an *sshole." Ashton's response was, "Was I...?"

He recalled in the interview, "She didn't blink." Without hesitation, she handed it right back to him. She said to him, "Yeah, you were an *sshole for a good two years." Ashton learned his lesson. He straightened up his act big time so he could be an honorable family man worthy of Mila's time and love.

Shrugging It Off

The former partners moved past all the drama, and they showed just have far they've come to the world. Mila Kunis and Demi Moore teamed up for an AT&T commercial at the 2002 Super Bowl. In the commercial, they joked about how much they have in common, like Ashton Kutcher and their high school alma mater!

It may not have been the way that Ashton and Demi wanted their journey to go, but life took them on a different route. Now they can close that chapter of their time together without any hard feelings. Thankfully, no bad blood remains between the former lovers.

Looking Back

There's actually the opposite of bad blood between them. Moore wrote about how she appreciated Ashton and the experiences they had together. Shocking, right? There could be so much hate, yet the actress wrote, "I'm grateful to Ashton too, believe it or not."

She continued, "Whatever pain we went through together enabled both of us to grow into the people we are today. We continue to collaborate with our foundation, Thorn, and I'm so proud of the work we do." That deserves a round of applause - for the couple and their charitable strides.

More Bad News

There was more bad news in store for Demi and her family. On February 16, 2023, she shared a devastating update regarding her ex-husband Bruce Willis. "Since we announced Bruce's diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruce's condition has progressed, and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia."

The Mayo Clinic defines frontotemporal dementia as an "umbrella term for a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behavior, and language." This is the most common type of dementia for people under 60.

Using His Voice

Bruce first shared the news of his diagnosis with aphasia in 2022. Back then, the Die Hard actor announced he would be taking a break from acting. With the most recent development, it looks like he won't be returning to the big screen. Even though he won't be appearing in new movies, his legacy will continue to live on.

The family wrote, "Bruce always believed in using his voice in the world to help others and to raise awareness about important issues both publicly and privately. We know in our hearts that – if he could today -- he'd want to respond by bringing global attention and a connectedness with those who are also dealing with [FTD]."

Living It Up

"As Bruce always says, 'Live it up' and together we plan to do just that," Moore wrote to her followers after her ex-husband's initial diagnosis in 2022. The couple had been together from 1987 to 1998 and had 3 girls. Even though Moore and Willis hadn't been married in decades, they still maintained a close relationship.

They are so close that Demi attended Willis's wedding to his current wife, Emma Heming, in 2009. She brought along her then-husband Ashton Kutcher as her date. The past is the past for them. Willis said in 2000, "We realize we have a lifelong commitment to our kids. Our friendship continues. The institution has been set aside."

The Healing Process

While now exes Demi and Bruce are role model examples of a blended family, the journey to get there wasn't always easy. When Demi started dating Ashton, Bruce struggled with his new reality. It was friend and Hitch actor Will Smith who helped him get past his jealousy and anger.

In 2007, Bruce told Playboy, "During some very dark hours, he talked to me about it. He said, 'Dude, you've got to do whatever it takes to get the kids and all the spouses or the girlfriend together. You've got to show your kids it's okay." He continued, "It was like a light went on... So Will, thanks."

Next Steps

Moore and Willis were amazing parents who always put their kids first. "They always made an effort to do all of the family events still together… to still have our family be as one unit, as opposed to two separate things, which I think really made an impact," daughter Rumer Willis told Larry King in an interview.

From spending time together quarantining in the pandemic to celebrating the holidays as one family, they always remained a strong unit. Through thick and thin, this blended family has each other's backs. Although this is a challenging time, thankfully the family has each other to lean on...