Two weeks ago, Danny Masterson was sentenced to thirty years in prison after he was convicted of two counts of rape. Masterson was credibly accused of raping, assaulting, drugging and abusing multiple women, but the Los Angeles County DA’s office should be applauded for getting the conviction on those two counts, especially given that many powerful people are lined up behind Masterson. Speaking of, after Masterson’s sentencing, we learned that many of Masterson’s friends and costars wrote letters to the judge to be considered as part of the sentencing. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’s letters were released and they were horrendous, just really asinine sh-t about how Masterson always abhorred drugs and something something 9/11. Soon after the letters leaked, Ashton and Mila made a disastrous “apology” video which did nothing to help their situation. Kutcher’s was particularly egregious because he has spent years as chairman of a charity, Thorn, which aims to raise awareness of human trafficking and sexual abuse. Well, not anymore – Kutcher and Kunis both stepped down from their positions:
Ashton Kutcher has resigned as chairman of the board of Thorn, the anti-child-sex-abuse organization he co-founded in 2009 with his then-wife Demi Moore. His wife Mila Kunis, who served as an observer on the organization’s board, is also stepping down. The move comes in the wake of outrage over their letters of support for Danny Masterson, who has been convicted of raping two women.
“Victims of sexual abuse have been historically silenced and the character statement I submitted is yet another painful instance of questioning victims who are brave enough to share their experiences,” Kutcher wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to Thorn’s board, which was shared exclusively with TIME.
“After my wife and I spent several days of listening, personal reflection, learning, and conversations with survivors and the employees and leadership at Thorn, I have determined the responsible thing for me to do is resign as Chairman of the Board, effectively immediately,” Kutcher wrote. “I cannot allow my error in judgment to distract from our efforts and the children we serve.”
The actor also apologized to victims of sexual assault and other advocates for letting them down. “The mission must always be the priority and I want to offer my heartfelt apology to all victims of sexual violence and everyone at Thorn who I hurt by what I did,” he wrote to the board. “And to the broader advocacy community, I am deeply sorry. I remain proud of what we have accomplished in the past decade and will continue to support Thorn’s work. Thank you for your tireless advocacy and dedication to this cause.”
I’m not giving Ashton a cookie for this, but I will say that his apology to Thorn is a lot better than the video he recorded with Mila. He, at the very least, correctly identified why he needed to step down: “the character statement I submitted is yet another painful instance of questioning victims who are brave enough to share their experiences.” That’s right, that’s exactly what he did. The accusations against Masterson became public in early 2017, although I would argue that Ashton knew what Masterson was doing for much longer. For the facts at hand, let’s say that the accusations were actually “news” to Ashton and Mila in 2017. More than six years ago, and they’re only NOW considering the fact that they refused to listen to victims or believe victims. Six years of sitting around, talking about how Danny Masterson is a great guy and those bitches are just lying. And let’s face it… if Ashton and Mila’s letters had never been released publicly, they would still be working with Thorn without ever acknowledging their grotesque hypocrisy.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
My guess is that they were asked to step away or be fired.
My take too..
This. A lot of the commentary was about how sketchy Thorn and the other org he worked with are. Sad that protecting women children from SA has become grifter central, but here we are.
( A lot of the commentary was about how sketchy Thorn and the other org he worked with are. )
This people were talking about how sketchy Thorn is and linking articles that have been calling out Thorn for years. Mila And Ashton were bringing too much attention to any shady dealings Thorn might be up to.
Yeah, my guess is that Ashton and Mila could choose whether they wanted to be fired or if they’d rather resign. Considering the huge difference in tone from their video explanation of the Masterton letter and these words chosen for stepping down from Thorn, my guess is that they had help/ a ghostwriter for this response as well.
Yes this apology was much better which leads me to believe he did not write it.
I agree. It was written for him by someone at the charity.
Exactly what I thought less than halfway through. No way that idiot wrote this himself.
Nothing is better than seeing someone like Mila who was so high and mighty talking shit about Will Smith like she such a better human being . Everyone defending will where horrible human being but she has no problem supporting and advocate for a rapist her and Ashton should be shame and dragged they didn’t given a damn about the damage their words would have on Danny victims . All they cared about was that he was their friend he was kind to them .
I have always gotten a racist vibe from her. The will smith thing kinda sealed it for me. She is from an extremely racist country. Which she left due to racism. As a minority immigrant she probably sees black people as a threat.
This all went down last week.
I am not giving anyone a cookie, except maybe THORN for firing Ashton’s ignorant *ss and the judge who sentenced Masterton…now she deserves a cookie!
He is filthy rich and they probably didn’t want to give up potential donations. The real question is “is thorn a real charity or just something to look good”.
The judge deserves a whole box of cookies!
Kutcher and Masterson , 2 grown men, if I heard correctly, openly discussed assaulting a 14 year old child by sticking his tongue down her throat, and then Kutcher disclosed this planned assault on a tv interview program. Shouldn’t Mila have been outraged instead of finding it apparently amusing? Are they so isolated and protected in their entertainment industry bubble that they don’t see what the rest of us see? It makes sense that they were encouraged to step away from the charity.
At the time of the Rosie O’Donnell interview, Kunis had been spending the majority of her time around these adult men for several years, since she was that 14 year old. I don’t feel comfortable policing her reaction to her own assault, especially in the presence of the men who groomed her and on national television. The better question might be why didn’t Kutcher feel disgust and shame at his own actions?
(Also, why did the producers of the sitcom employ a child in a role that would require sexualized scenes with an adult man?)
Where was her agent? Where were her parents? SAG-AFTRA also supposedly restricts what child actors can do. I think she (and many other child actors) are failed by everyone around them.
Years ago I read that she originally lied to the producers about her age. Something along the lines of, are you 18 to which she relied, I will be (at some point) I don’t know when the truth about her age became known?
My former/anti scientology rabbit hole after the Masterson sentencing led me to speculation about Ashton and Mila and why their disaster apology video looked like they were being held hostage to make it- they hate Danny’s rape victims for pursuing criminal charges because they were working on contract negotiations with Netflix for exclusive streaming rights for That 70s Show that would have netted the main actors tens of millions of dollars for the length of the contract, and now that’s all fallen through, and Danny being a convicted serial rapist has turned the show into a toxic property when before it was probably on track to being one of the most valuable streaming properties. That and also Ashton was forced to fire Danny from The Ranch after the allegations first came out and then his show was canceled.
I don’t know how much of that is true because as I said, it’s speculation from the anti-scientology internet rabbit hole, but if it is, it certainly makes Topher Grace and his wife look even more awesome, since they probably lost out on millions too but still managed to be good people.
I mean, this is barely speculation. They all lost money because of this and I’m sure they aren’t happy about it.
It’s the only thing they could do. They probably should have stepped down before submitting their letters of support to the judge.
Based on no actual information for this particular case, I will say that most often, people who “stand by” predators and put their own credibility on the line for them have their own secrets to hide and it becomes a mutual-destruction problem…i.e. “stand up for me or I’ll drown you with me”. I’ve personally seen it over and over and over. Birds of a feather and all that.
Yes. My mind went immediately to “this feels like a blackmail situation” when I saw this story break.
No cookies. THORN actively collects and hands over information to police on ALL sex work under the guise of anti-trafficking heroism. You know what doesn’t help trafficking victims? Throwing them in prison.
As apologies go, this is a good one. No “sorry if you were offended,” and actually taking responsibility for what he did wrong.
I don’t love Ashton Kutcher and still feel upset by the original support letters, but someone pointed out to me over the weekend that if people listen to backlash and genuinely course correct, we do no one any favors by refusing to accept that someone’s mind and actions have been changed. Basically, if we continue to condemn a person, it gives the next person motive to double down rather than be open to change.
I don’t know if Ashton and Mila have genuinely seen the light, but I’m willing to give them a shot. Maybe.
This has troubled me too, the idea that if we assume no one can learn or grow then they are incentivized to just stick in their ignorance, misogyny and racism. That said, while I believe that people can change and I sincerely hope Ashton is listening and learning from this experience, it has only been a week since the news came out so I sincerely doubt that he has learned much so far. This statement was written by his PR firm.
This reminds me of when #metoo happened, and Ashton focused his time on creating Do’s and don’ts of dating in the workplace. he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, but he often needs to just sit back and listen to the people who are impacted instead of assuming he understands the issues and automatically has all the answers. I really do hope that this is a learning experience for him.
Ashton was against the firing of Joe Paterno, who was covering up for serial child molester Jerry Sandusky; Kutcher and Masterson openly discussed assaulting a 14-year-old Mila by Ashton sticking his tongue down her throat, and then years later Kutcher disclosed this planned assault on a TV like it was so funny, This is not a one-time thing this is a pattern.
(, if we continue to condemn a person, it gives the next person motive to double down rather than be open to change. )
I disagree that is like saying we shouldn’t hold people accountable for their actions. In the last 10 or so years have been full of Celebrities giving empty apologies (public excepting them) those celebrities didn’t charge their behavior and still doubling down.
I firmly agree that people should be allowed to change.
However, one act of decency which was probably instigated by the (allegedly shady) organization (Thorn) weighed against the heinous act of supporting a convicted rapist is not proof Ashton has changed.
In order for him to show he has changed he needs to keep doing the work and proving his values actually align with his deeds. And he can totally do that. The question is will he do that?
Resigning in shame isn’t the same thing as seeing the light.
I won’t believe either has seen the light- they need to apologize to the Jane Does who everyone forgets about and were the survivors of Masterson’s assaults. The Jane Does, one of whom spoke with an exec for Netflix b4 they canned Masterson from The Ranch. She inquired why he was still employed after he was credibly charged. The exec (didn’t know she was one of the plaintiffs) said “we don’t believe them” meaning the women. These ladies have been thru hell, but the news is all about poor Bijou, and what’s gonna happen to Ashton’s business… smh
All I can say is that they must be thanking their lucky stars that all this Russell Brand news broke at the end of last week, or there probably would have been more negative coverage of Ashton and his past gross comments, Demi, his girlfriend that was murdered, etc.
See also: Lauren Boebert’s sleazy behavior. Brand’s outing knocked her off the radar.
Just a quick look at Charity Navigator that the board of Thorn sure makes a ton of money on salary.
Non-profit board directors are not compensated. It’s a volunteer position. I just checked Thorn’s most recent 990 and the salaries listed are all for executives not board directors, with the exception of Julie Cordua who is both CEO and a board member. The salaries are in line with industry standards given how much they are fundraising. I imagine they will take a big hit this year.
On a totally shallow note, both Ashton and Mila look like they’re melting. They’re definitely getting the faces they deserve.
ClairB
I try to stay away from criticizing women’s looks, but I make acceptions for a handful of especially repugnant women (Camilla & Lena Dunham, for example) and now Mina had been added to said list.
I’ve thought for a few years now that Mila is aging VERY rapidly, at least in her face. My guess is carrying two children while maintaining a (I’m guessing) 600 calorie diet. Malnourishment during pregnancy is hell on a woman’s looks. Just look at Kate Middleton (she’s on the list, too)
I’m pretty sure there was another recent article that came out (last week?) about a charity Ashton started in his home state of Iowa and how that charity pays twice as much in “executive salaries” than it does in grants. It also talked about how much money the charity lost when it held fundraising concerts. To be fair, I think it said Ashton has left that organization, but it also is fishy.