Actor Ashton Kutcher is finally getting candid about how it felt to be thrust into the role of a stepfather when he was just 26 years old. In a new interview, the That '70s Show star admitted to being quite overwhelmed by suddenly having to help parent former wife Demi Moore's three children from her previous marriage.
Ashton appears on the cover of Esquire's latest issue.
During his interview with the magazine, the actor made his thoughts known when he addressed his marriage to Demi. At the time the pair said "I do," Demi was already a mother to three young children — then-12-year-old Rumer, 10-year-old Scout, and 8-year-old Tallulah — from her previous trip down the aisle with Bruce Willis.
Ashton admitted to feeling slightly unprepared for the task at the time.
"That's how some teen parents must experience their twenties," he joked of the experience of finding himself suddenly co-parenting kids who were only half his age.
"I love kids. I wouldn't have gotten married to a woman who had three kids if I didn't love kids," he continued, before the discussion turned more somber and Ashton made a startling revelation.
He shared that he and Demi endured a tragic pregnancy loss.
While they were together, the two found out they were expecting. Sadly, Demi's pregnancy was cut short, and she suffered a miscarriage when she was six months along.
"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," Ashton recalled of the experience.
Ashton said the pregnancy loss combined with the end of his marriage made him feel like a failure.
"Nothing makes you feel like a failure like divorce," he explained. "Divorce feels like a wholesale f—ing failure. You failed at marriage."
Ashton dredged up his past with Demi after making remarks about how angry he was that she brought up the intimate details of their relationship for her 2019 book, Inside Out.
He's finally gotten his happy ending.
Even though his marriage to Demi ended, Ashton got another chance at fatherhood when he and long-time love Mila Kunis married in 2015. The That '90s Show costars went on to welcome a daughter and a son together and have been happily married since then.
Ashton's road to becoming a dad may have been bumpy, but it seems like he's had mostly smooth sailing since then. We're glad he's in a such good space these days!
