Ashton Kutcher first rose to fame in the late ‘90s after he landed the role of Michael Kelso in the popular sitcom That ‘70s Show.
From there, Ashton quickly became a household name thanks to his hit MTV show Punk’d and lead roles in movies like Dude, Where My Car? and The Butterfly Effect.
In fact, it’s fair to say that Ashton is one of the standout stars of the early naughts, and his endearing marriage with his former That ‘70s Show costar Mila Kunis since 2015 has secured him even more public attention later in his career.
Despite this, both Ashton and Mila have always been sure to keep the majority of their lives incredibly private, and it’s very rare that we get any kind of insight into what goes on behind the glitz and glamor of their Hollywood personas.
But Ashton has now made the uncharacteristic decision to put what is arguably his most personal relationship of all under the microscope in a new TV appearance.
In Paramount+’s The Checkup With Dr. David Agus, Ashton and his twin brother Michael have opened up about their differing lives in a candid and incredibly honest conversation.
Michael was diagnosed with cerebral palsy — a lifelong disorder that impacts movement and coordination — when he was a child, and in the show Ashton recalls the extreme measures that he was willing to go to for his brother’s wellbeing.
And on the other end of the spectrum, the twins also reveal the tension that their brotherhood has faced off the back of Michael’s health troubles and Ashton’s success.
In the show, Michael says that his and Ashton’s mom Diane first realized that he was different to his brother when they turned three years old and she noted “some slowness, some motor skill functionality was missing, slurring some of my speech.”
But even after his diagnosis the twins were treated completely the same, with the belief that anything Ashton could do Michael will also be able to.
“They challenged me” Michael explains, also revealing that Ashton would stand up for him when he was targeted by bullies due to his vision loss, hearing loss and speech impediment.
Ashton recalls how they played together, shared clothes, and wrestled while growing up, but things took a turn in their early teens when the family were told that Michael was in desperate need of a heart transplant.
The twins were in eighth grade when Michael was rushed to hospital and given just three to four weeks to live.
Reliving the difficult moment on the show, Ashton fights back tears as he opens up about the moment that he was pulled out of the hospital room after Michael flatlined.
It was at this point that Ashton decided that he wanted to sacrifice himself to save his twin’s life.
“I’m thinking to myself: ‘IIf anyone’s a match, I’m a match,’” Ashton shares. “Now you start running that cycle through your head. You’re like, ‘This balcony looks far enough to take things.’”
“I think standing on the balcony going, ‘I’m a match,’ that moment is probably the exact moment the shift took place,” Ashton goes on. “Where I’m like, ‘How do I get to be this lucky? And my brother to be born with cerebral palsy, then have a heart transplant…’”
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Agus said of this moment in Ashton and Michael’s lives: “Ashton went to his parents and said, ‘Take my heart.’ He said it truthfully. He really wanted to give it to his brother.”
Thankfully, Michael managed to find a match and was given a heart transplant after the family were told that he had just 24 hours to live.
And despite the huge display of love that Ashton showed for his brother during the height of his health issues, the incredibly different lives that they led ended up being a source of contention as they grew up.
Michael struggled with the way that Ashton appeared to pity him, and things got worse when Ashton found fame and became a self-confessed “asshole.”
Ashton says of his early days of celebrity: “It’s so easy to believe the good things people are saying about you and start to onboard that as who you are as a person. Frankly, I was just an asshole for a while.”
And at the same time, Michael admits that he was jealous of his brother’s success and their relationship became fraught.
Things ended up coming to a head when Michael visited Ashton in New York and confronted him over the way that he treated him, specifically how Ashton made him feel like a lesser person.
“Mike came out to visit and stay and he looked at me and he said, ‘Every time you feel sorry for me, you make me less. This is the only life I’ve ever known, so stop feeling sorry for the only thing I have,'” Ashton recalls. “That then created an entire shift back to where I think we are today, which is we’re straight up equals again. That’s it.”
This was a turning point in the twins’ relationship, with Michael saying: “Once we kind of got together, we talked through that and I realized he’s still my brother. The world may view him differently, but I know him.”
“He’s still my brother and he hasn’t changed and he never will change,” he adds. “Once I took all of the fame and everything out of it, I was able to come back to him.”
However, when Ashton publicly outed Michael’s health issues during a 2003 appearance on Nightline things became tense once again.
“I didn’t know I was outing him because I didn’t know it was a secret,” Ashton explains.
And while Michael “didn’t appreciate” Ashton for what he’d done at the time, he ended up using the opportunity to express himself and become an “advocate.”
“I really struggled for a lot of my early adulthood, trying to figure out who Michael was. Once he gave me the opportunity to really express this part of me, I thought, ‘Well, if we’re out there, I might as well do good with it. I might as well be an advocate,” Michael says.
Meanwhile, the ups and downs that he and Michael have faced over the years have given Ashton “an appreciation for life.”
Needless to say, the brutally honest conversation that Ashton and Michael had on the show has been widely praised by viewers, with one person commenting on a clip of the interview: “The introspection that these two gentlemen have within their own feelings is amazing.”
“It’s inside that honest and painful communication where they’ll find healing,” another said. A third wrote: “Kudos to both for being open and honest.”
One more added: “Wow that’s heavy you are both so so so strong for each other now and that’s beautiful!!!”
