They’ve both moved on to new long-term relationships with other actors, but back in the early 2000s, Mila Kunis and Macaulay Culkin were one of Hollywood’s most steady young couples. The two actors were together from 2002 to 2011, which means that they spent nearly the entirety of their 20s together. When it was publicly confirmed that they’d ended things in January 2011, a statement from their representatives asserted that the split was amicable. But, years later, Kunis called their breakup “horrible” and said that she was to blame for why it was so painful.
Read on to find out more about this former couple and to see why Kunis called their messy split her fault.
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Kunis and Culkin kept largely to themselves when they were together, but they did open up about their relationship in interviews. For instance, in 2007, Kunis told Parade, “We’re incredibly private, and I think we relish the privacy we do actually have and are able to sustain it. We enjoy each other’s company. We like to read books or play video games or watch TV or go to the movies. And he’s an amazing cook. He makes dinner every night.” She added, “He’s an amazing, simple guy, who is probably the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.”
In 2006, Culkin told New York Magazine that he lived a “simple, simple life” that included cooking for Kunis. According to the publication, he spoke of his girlfriend “fawningly, finding a way to reference her in every other sentence.”
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In January 2011, the news broke that the seemingly solid couple had split. Kunis’ representative told Page Six (via Us Weekly), “The split was amicable, and they remain close friends.” Additionally, a source told Us that they had broken up months earlier but had kept the news quiet since Kunis was promoting her film Black Swan at the time.
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In 2018, Kunis appeared on the podcast Armchair Expert and shared more about her breakup with Culkin. It was during this interview that she took the blame for how the relationship ended, though she didn’t reveal exactly what she had done.
“I had a horrible breakup. I had a horrible, horrible, horrible breakup,” the Bad Moms star said (via Us Weekly). “I [expletive] up. I was an [expletive] in my 20s and I’ll be the first to admit it. And that’s kind of something that took me a long time to come out and be like, ‘Yeah, you know what? I was a [expletive],’ and accept it. And I own it now.” She added, “It’s [expletive] up what I did and it’s [expletive] up how I did it.”
Asked if she had forgiven herself for what happened, the actor replied, “You know, it’s been so long. Like, I feel like enough time has gone by … Everybody kind of forgave everybody for what went down.”
She also opened up about what it was like to be out of a relationship for the first time nine years. “When I got to be single, I said, ‘I just need to figure myself out,” Kunis said. “I genuinely need to know why I did what I did and, like, regroup myself as a human being.'”
In a 2012 Elle UK interview (via HuffPost UK), Kunis explained that she learned from setbacks, including her breakup from Culkin.
“Being settled so young really helped,” she said. “You know, I wouldn’t take back anything in my life, not one thing. I think it all shaped me to be who I am today. There are things that people know about, and there are things that the press doesn’t know about, and everything that did occur 100 percent shaped who I am. My ex-boyfriend, my family, my friends, everybody.”
It’s been over 10 years since Culkin and Kunis split up, and they’ve both found love again. Kunis married her That ’70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher in 2015, and they’ve welcomed two children together. As for Culkin, he’s been in a relationship with Brenda Song, his co-star in the movie Changeland, since 2017. They also have two children.
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