Ashton Kutcher Makes Rare Comments About His Ex Demi Moore

Ashton Kutcher isn’t bothered by the comparisons between his new TV series and the 2024 film “The Substance,” which starred his ex, Demi Moore.

The actor returns to the small screen next week in FX’s “The Beauty,” in which he plays a biotech billionaire who unveils a cosmetic superdrug with some grisly side effects. The series appears to share themes with “The Substance,” in which Moore portrayed Elisabeth Sparkle, a Hollywood actor turned fitness guru who goes to deadly extremes to appear youthful.

Speaking to “Entertainment Tonight” this week, Kutcher offered some words of praise for Moore, to whom he was married from 2005 to 2013, while noting how “The Beauty” differs from “The Substance.”

“Demi’s performance in ‘The Substance,’ like, obviously she got extraordinary accolades ― I’m so proud of her, she killed it,” he said. “The bigger context, though, is we’re in a society where cosmetic enhancement is becoming increasingly predominant and accepted. It’s a weird thing.”

He went on to note: “I think [co-creator Ryan Murphy] really wanted to explore that beauty is very different for each one of these characters … and sometimes, these things come with unintended consequences.”

For the most part, Kutcher and Moore have been tight-lipped about the end of their marriage. In her 2019 memoir “Inside Out,” however, Moore claimed she’d brought “a third party into our relationship” at Kutcher’s request, after which he began straying from their marriage entirely, she said.

“I was strangely flooded with shame,” she wrote, according to People. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole thing was somehow my fault.”

In 2015, Kutcher married his former “That ’70s Show” co-star Mila Kunis, with whom he shares two children.

Shortly after the release of Moore’s book, Kutcher shared that he’d kept in touch with his former stepdaughters Rumer Willis, Scout Willis and Tallulah Willis ― whom Moore shares with her first husband, actor Bruce Willis.

“I loved them, and I’m never gonna stop loving them and respecting them and honoring them and rooting for them to be successful in whatever they’re pursuing,” he explained on the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast.

As for where his relationship with Moore stands, he said, “It’s all good, we don’t hang out … there’s no badness.”

Moore has been enjoying a professional renaissance of sorts ever since her chilling, no-holds-barred performance in “The Substance” garnered her major critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination. She’s set to return to the big screen in “I Love Boosters,” which also stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and LaKeith Stanfield, later this year.

Watch Ashton Kutcher talk about “The Beauty” below. His comments on Demi Moore begin at around 7:22.