In the early ’00s, one of the most high-profile celebrity couples in Hollywood was also one of the most unexpected. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher started dating in 2003, and two years later, they got married. When they first got together, Moore was a 40-year-old mother of three children with ex Bruce Willis, and Kutcher was a 25-year-old, who would soon become stepfather to daughters ranging in age from 11 to 17. And while Moore and Kutcher’s romance definitely got the media and the public talking, it also was quite shocking within the family, especially for Moore’s children, Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah Willis.
Moore’s youngest daughter, Tallulah, is currently appearing on the reality TV series Stars on Mars, and during the premiere episode, she opened up about her mother’s six-year marriage to Kutcher and how it affected her. The 29-year-old said that the relationship sent her into “a dumpster fire” that she is “still unpacking” today.
This isn’t the first time that one of Moore’s daughters has opened up about how the relationship impacted the family. Read on to find out more.
READ THIS NEXT: Kristen Stewart Said She “Lit Her Universe on Fire” When She Cheated on Robert Pattinson.
As reported by Insider, on Stars on Mars, wrestler Ronda Rousey started the conversation by asking Tallulah about having famous parents.
“I grew up in Idaho. And I knew my parents had this job that made them this thing and we got to do cool stuff, but I didn’t fully understand,” Tallulah responded. She explained that it was when Moore started dating Kutcher that she realized just how famous her parents are—and she didn’t take it well.
“It was that moment, a lot going on, and I really went inside of myself, and that did send me into like a total dumpster fire. It was really hard and I’m still unpacking,” she said. But, she made it through with a positive outlook. “I found the other side of that, which is like I really love myself now and I love my family.”
Tallulah didn’t go into much detail on the reality show, but she, her sisters, and her mother had a candid conversation about that time in their lives during a 2019 episode of Red Table Talk. This was around the time that Moore’s memoir Inside Out was published, and she revealed more about her marriage to Kutcher in the book than the public previously knew.
On the show, her daughters shared that they felt overlooked when Moore and Kutcher were together. At the same time, the Ghost actor had also relapsed on her sobriety and suffered a miscarriage.
“What happened was, she relapsed when I was nine, and nobody in our family spoke about it. And I had no idea what was going on, she had been sober my entire childhood, and then she drank,” Tallulah said on Red Table Talk (via E! News). “Then there was sort of many years of saying she was sober and she wasn’t and we couldn’t trust it.”
Moore explained how her marriage played into her relapse. “I made my own story up, that [Kutcher] wanted somebody that he could have wine with and do stuff,” she said. “He’s not the cause of why I opened that door. I wanted to be something other than who I am. It was literally like giving my power away.”
For more celebrity news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
Tallulah shared on Red Table Talk that she felt at the time like her mother didn’t care about her.
“Watching the behavior with Ashton those years—because everyone left the house and it was just me living there —I felt very forgotten and I felt like I developed and I nurtured a narrative that she didn’t love me,” she said (via Entertainment Tonight). “And I truly believed it. And I know that she does 100 percent, but in that moment, you’re hurt and you can’t fathom that someone that loves you would do that to you and would choose others more than you.”
The sisters revealed that there were long stretches of time in which Scout and Tallulah didn’t speak to Moore, but that oldest sister Rumer stayed in touch.
Moore and Kutcher wanted to have a baby. When she was six months along in her pregnancy, Moore suffered a miscarriage. Rumer said that she felt at the time like her mom thought she and her sisters were “not enough.”
“I think after you had a miscarriage, I was just like, ‘Why are you so desperate to have another kid?’ And I couldn’t’ stand the idea,” Rumer said. “But then I found these pictures and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I saw how big her stomach was and I was like, ‘Oh my god. I was so insensitive.'”
Moore owned up to being absent from their lives in some ways during this period. “The addiction and the co-dependency, my addiction to Ashton, that was probably almost more devastating because it took me seriously away emotionally,” she said.
Kutcher reflected on being a stepfather to Moore’s children in an interview this year.
“I was 26, bearing the responsibility of an eight-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 12-year-old,” he told Esquire in January 2023. “That’s how some teen parents must experience their twenties.” He said he was still in touch with Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah, and added that, even though he got along with them, the experience was “a lot.”
“I love kids,” said Kutcher, who now has two children with his wife Mila Kunis. “I wouldn’t have gotten married to a woman that had three kids if I didn’t love kids. He added of the miscarriage, “The idea of having another kid would have been incredible. For whatever reason, I had to have that experience.”
Moore claims that she and Kutcher split when she found out he was unfaithful. “Nothing makes you feel like a failure like divorce,” Kutcher told Esquire. “Divorce feels like a wholesale [expletive] failure. You failed at marriage.”