Kutcher began his acting career portrayingMichael Kelso in theFox sitcomThat '70s Show (1998–2006). He made his film debut in the romantic comedyComing Soon (1999), followed by the comedy filmDude, Where's My Car? (2000), which was a box office success. In 2003, Kutcher starred in the romantic comediesJust Married andMy Boss's Daughter. That year, he created and produced the television seriesPunk'd, also serving as host for the first eight of its ten seasons. Kutcher starred in the science fiction filmThe Butterfly Effect (2004) and had a voice role inOpen Season (2006).
Beyond entertainment, Kutcher is also aventure capitalist. He is a co-founder of the venture capital firmA-Grade Investments. AtSXSW in March 2015, Kutcher announced Sound Ventures, the successor to A-Grade Investments, managing a fund backed by institutional funding. Kutcher has also invested in several high technology startups.
Early life
Kutcher was born on February 7, 1978, inCedar Rapids, Iowa, to Diane (née Finnegan), aProcter & Gamble employee, and Larry M. Kutcher, a factory worker.[1][2] He has Czech, German, and Irish ancestry.[3][4]
Kutcher was raised in a "relatively conservative"Catholic family.[5] He has an older sister named Tausha and afraternal twin brother named Michael, who had a heart transplant when the brothers were young children.[6] Michael also hascerebral palsy and is a spokesperson for the advocacy organization Reaching for the Stars.[7] Michael'scardiomyopathy caused Kutcher's home life to become increasingly stressful. He said he "didn't want to come home and find more bad news" about his brother, stating, "I kept myself so busy that I didn't allow myself to feel."[8] Kutcher stated that, when he was 13, he contemplated committing suicide to save his brother's life with a heart transplant; when he told his father he was considering jumping from a Cedar Rapids hospital balcony, his father dissuaded him from doing so shortly before doctors announced that a transplant had become available from an accident victim in another state.[9]
Kutcher attendedWashington High School in Cedar Rapids for his freshman year, before his family moved toHomestead, Iowa, where he attendedClear Creek–Amana High School. During high school, he developed a passion for acting and appeared in school plays. During his senior year, he broke into his high school at midnight with his cousin in an attempt to steal money; he was arrested leaving the scene. Kutcher was convicted of third-degree burglary and sentenced to three years of probation and 180 hours of community service. Kutcher stated that although the experience "straightened him out," he lost his girlfriend and anticipated college scholarships, and was ostracized at school and in his community.[10]
Kutcher enrolled at theUniversity of Iowa in August 1996, where his planned major wasbiochemical engineering, motivated by the desire to cure his brother's heart ailment.[2] At college, Kutcher was kicked out of his apartment for being too "noisy" and "wild."[11] Kutcher stated, "I thought I knew everything but I didn't have a clue. I was partying, and I woke up many mornings not knowing what I had done the night before. I played way too hard. I am amazed I am not dead."[12] To earn tuition money, Kutcher worked as a college summer hire in the cereal department for theGeneral Mills plant in Cedar Rapids and sometimes sold his blood plasma.[13] While at the University of Iowa, he was approached by a model scout at The Airliner bar inIowa City, Iowa,[14] and entered the "Fresh Faces of Iowa" modeling competition. Placing first, he won a trip to New York City'sInternational Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Convention. Leaving Iowa for a stay in New York City, Kutcher then returned to Cedar Rapids, before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting.[11]
Career
Modeling
After participating in an IMTA competition in 1998, Kutcher signed with Next modeling agency in New York, appeared in commercials forCalvin Klein, and modelled in Paris and Milan.[15]
Following his success in modeling, Kutcher moved to Los Angeles after his first audition.[16] He was cast asMichael Kelso in the television seriesThat '70s Show and played that part from 1998 to 2006. Kutcher was cast in a series of film roles; although he auditioned but was not cast for the role of Danny Walker inPearl Harbor (2001) (replaced byJosh Hartnett), he starred in several comedy films, includingDude, Where's My Car? (2000),Just Married (2003), andGuess Who (2005). He appeared in the 2003 family filmCheaper by the Dozen as a self-obsessed actor. In the 2004 drama filmThe Butterfly Effect, Kutcher played a conflicted young man who time travels. While the film received negative reviews, it was a box office success.[10]
In 2003, Kutcher produced and starred as the host in his own series, MTV'sPunk'd, that involved hidden camera tricks performed on celebrities. He is also an executive producer of the reality television showsBeauty and the Geek,Adventures in Hollyhood (based around the rap groupThree 6 Mafia),The Real Wedding Crashers, and the game showOpportunity Knocks. Many of his production credits, includingPunk'd, come throughKatalyst Films, a production company he runs with partnerJason Goldberg.[17] A 2004 interviewer described Kutcher as a "hunky young actor [who] is heading in all different directions at once," including to "the hot L.A. restaurant Dolce":
"If anything, I'm a trier," says Kutcher between puffs of filtered Lucky Strikes. "I think, more than anything, it comes from the fact that my father always had several irons in the fire. Also, I don't want to fail. If something doesn't work out—ifThat '70s Show got canceled or if I wasn't going to have a film career—I always wanted to have backup contingency plans. So I just started doing other things; and on a half-hour sitcom, you're really only working for 30 hours a week. It allows a lot of time for sitting around, which I always kind of filled with work.[18]
Because of scheduling conflicts with the filming ofThe Guardian, Kutcher was unable to renew his contract for the eighth and final season ofThat '70s Show, although he appeared in its first four episodes (credited as a special guest star) and returned for the series finale.[10] Kutcher produced and starred in the 2010 action comedy,Killers, in which he played a hitman.[19] In May 2011, Kutcher was announced asCharlie Sheen's replacement on the seriesTwo and a Half Men.[20]
Kutcher's contract was for one year and was believed to be worth nearly$20 million.[21] His debut as the characterWalden Schmidt, entitled "Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt," was seen by 28.7 million people on September 19, 2011. TheNielsen ratings company reported that figure was larger than any episode in the show's first eight seasons with Sheen.[22][23] Kutcher earned$750,000 an episode on the show.[24] The show ended with a forty-minute series finale "Of Course He's Dead" on February 19, 2015.
Kutcher appeared in aPopchips ad campaign in May 2012.[25] The campaign featured Kutcher as an Indian man named Raj who was "looking for love" in a dating ad-style spoof. Kutcher's use ofbrown face paint and a stereotypical Indian accent received criticism from online viewers and members of the Indian-American community.[26]
Kutcher appeared as a guest Shark during the seventh season ofreality TV showShark Tank, which premiered on September 25, 2015.[27]
He was a co-founder of the venture capital firmA-Grade Investments withGuy Oseary,Ron Burkle and fund managerChris Hollod. Kutcher, Oseary, and Burkle started by initially investing$30 million of their own funds in 2010 when they founded the firm. By 2016, Forbes valued the firms holdings at$236 million.[35] AtSXSW, on March 14, 2015, Kutcher announced a new business, called Sound Ventures, a successor to A-Grade Investments, to manage a fund backed by institutional funding.[36]
On October 29, 2013,Lenovo announced that it hired Kutcher as a product engineer.[37] Kutcher was part of the management team forOoma, a tech start-up launched in September 2007. Ooma was in theVoice over Internet Protocol business and Kutcher's role was Creative Director.[38] He spearheaded a marketing campaign and produced viral videos to promote this service. Ooma revamped its sales and marketing strategy with a new management team in the summer of 2008, and replaced Kutcher with a new creative director. Rich Buchanan, from Sling Media, became Ooma's Chief Marketing Officer.[39]
Kutcher also created an interactive arm of Katalyst calledKatalyst Media, with his partner from Katalyst Films, Jason Goldberg.[40][41] Their first site was the animated cartoonBlah Girls.
Kutcher invested in an Italian restaurant called Dolce[10] (other owners includedDanny Masterson andWilmer Valderrama), and a Japanese-themed restaurant named Geisha House with locations in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York City.[42] Geisha House went out of business on June 1, 2013.[43]
In 2019, Ashton Kutcher,Mark Cuban, Steve Watts, and Watts's wife, Angela, invested a 50% stake inVeldskoen Shoes, a fledgling U.S. business.[44]
In 2009, Kutcher established an international human rights organization with his then-wifeDemi Moore. DNA Foundation, later known asThorn: Digital Defenders of Children, worked on a global scale to address the sexual exploitation of children and the proliferation of child pornography.[47]
On March 23, 2011, Kutcher launched his ownTwitter client with UberMedia called A.plus. While the app was initially available exclusively for desktop computers withAdobe Air installed, it eventually became available on mobile platformsiPhone,Android, andBlackBerry. To download one of the three mobile platforms, users were compelled to install the UberSocial application on their device and then download A.plus on their browser.[48][49]
In 2013, Kutcher,Evan Beard, and Kendall Dabaghi launchedA Plus; Kutcher served as the chairman of the board.[50] Initially a product discovery service,[51] it morphed, in April 2014, into a social media-driven content platform focused on upbeat stories.[52] It officially launched in that incarnation in January 2015.[53] It reported 27.5 million monthly unique visitors in the United States, had anAlexa rank of about 11,787 (4,019 in the U.S.), and was ranked by Quantcast as a top-50 site in the U.S.[50][54]
In 2016, while speaking at anAirbnb event in Los Angeles, Kutcher was assailed onstage by a protestor who criticized the company for allowingIsraeli settlers to list their homes in the illegally-occupiedWest Bank on its website. Kutcher was an early investor in the company.[55] In 2018, Kutcher attended the Western Region gala ofFriends of the Israeli Defense Forces, which raised over$60 million forIDF soldiers.[56][57]
In 2022, Kutcher and his wifeMila Kunis, a native of Ukraine, started agofundme page to help two online companies, (Airbnb andFlexport), to aid refugees fromUkraine, who fled violence perpetrated by Russia's military. They raised$34 million as of March 2022[update].[58][59] These two organizations were on the ground to help people in Poland and Romania. The couple promised to match the funding.[60][61]
Personal life
Marriages and relationships
In February 2001, Ashley Ellerin, whom Ashton Kutcher was dating at the time, was murdered. While never a suspect, Kutcher testified at the 2019 trial ofserial killerMichael Gargiulo. Kutcher stated that on the night that Ellerin was murdered, Kutcher had arrived to pick her up for a date, but that she had not answered the door. His information helped establish the time of death.[62][63] Gargiulo was found guilty andsentenced to death on July 16, 2021, for her murder.[64]
Kutcher andDemi Moore met in 2003[66] and married on September 24, 2005.[67] Six years later, on November 17, 2011, Moore announced her intention to end the marriage.[68] After more than a year of separation, Kutcher filed for divorce from Moore on December 21, 2012, in Los Angeles Superior Court, citingirreconcilable differences.[69] The divorce was finalized on November 26, 2013.[67]
Kutcher began dating his formerThat '70s Show co-starMila Kunis during the first half of 2012.[70] After they became engaged in February 2014,[71] she gave birth to a daughter in October 2014.[72][73] Kunis married Kutcher in July 2015.[74] She gave birth to a son in November 2016.[75] The family resides in a sustainable farmhouse, designed by the couple and architectHoward Backen, inBeverly Hills.[76]
Interests and beliefs
In 2009, Kutcher described himself as afiscal conservative and asocial liberal.[77] He is a gun owner but supports new gun laws to help stop mass shootings. Following the2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, he said on Twitter, "I've had a gun since I was 12 yrs old but enough is enough. I'm a hunter and a sportsman but nobody needs assault rifles. Let's pray. Then let's change the law."[78]
On September 17, 2008, Kutcher was named the assistant coach for the freshman football team atHarvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. However, he was unable to return in 2009 because he was filmingSpread.[79][80]
Kutcher is also a long-time practitioner ofBrazilian jiu-jitsu and he was promoted to black belt in the martial art byRigan Machado in 2025.[81]
Kutcher grew up as aCatholic. As an adult, he practicesKabbalah, and has visited Israel and studied theTorah; his wife Mila Kunis stated that he "taught [me] everything I never knew" about her religion, Judaism, though as of 2018, he has not converted.[82][83][84] On trips to Israel, Kutcher visited Kabbalah centers inTel Aviv and inTsfat.[83] In 2013, Kutcher remarked, "Israel is near and dear to my heart ... coming to Israel is sort of coming back to the source of creation—trying to get closer to that. And as a creative person, going to the source of creation is really inspiring. And this place has been really inspiring for me—not only on a spiritual level, but also on an artistic and creative level."[85]
Social media presence
On April 16, 2009, Kutcher became the first Twitter user to reach more than 1 million followers,[86] beatingCNN in the site's "Million followers contest."[87][88] In November 2011, Kutcher received heavy criticism for his tweet in response to theJerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, calling the firing of Penn State football coachJoe Paterno "in poor taste."[89] Kutcher subsequently turned over management of his Twitter account to his team at the Katalyst Media company.[90]
In April 2011, Kutcher and then-wife Demi Moore began a public service announcement campaign to endchild sex trafficking.[91] Kutcher claimed that 100,000 to 300,000 American children were sold into sexual slavery. The number was criticized by newspaperThe Village Voice. Kutcher and others includingThe New York Times,C-SPAN, and CNN used a peer-reviewed study, which referred to minors at risk for sexual exploitation.[92]The Village Voice, from their research, said it was only hundreds of children.[93] Kutcher claimed the criticism by theVillage Voice promotedchild prostitution and used Twitter to request thatVillage Voice advertisers withdraw their advertising from publications owned by its parent company.[94][95]
Health
In August 2022, Kutcher revealed that two years earlier he had been diagnosed withvasculitis, which had impaired his hearing, vision, and mobility during the course of a year.[96]
Danny Masterson trial
After the conviction ofThat '70s Show andThe Ranch castmate,Danny Masterson, for rape, Kutcher, along withMila Kunis, wrote letters to the judge in support of Masterson.[97] The letters stated that Masterson was a good person and that he treated people with "decency, equality, and generosity."[98] After the letters were made public, Kutcher and Kunis received immediate backlash and criticism for their support of Masterson, especially due to Kutcher's and Kunis's involvement in Thorn, a charity to expose the sexual exploitation of children. After the backlash, Kutcher and Kunis apologized in a video, in which the two claimed that the letters were only intended for the judge and not for the public. The apology was similarly criticized as "performative and insincere."[99] In response to the further backlash, Kutcher stepped down as chairman of the board of Thorn.[100]
^"Births— Mercy", "Statistics",The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA), February 8, 1978, p.2A ("Feb. 7... Mr. and Mrs. Larry Kutcher, 824 Daniels St. NE, twin sons")
^"Living The Dream – The Making of Spread" (Commentary with Kutcher saying: "I'm from the Mid West. I'm from a Catholic family, from a relatively conservative environment."),Spread on DVD,Katalyst Films, 2009.
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