Best of 2023: Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis' Notorious Instagram Video About Their Support of Danny Masterson Is a Masterclass in How NOT to Apologize

One of the many positive things that came out of the MeToo movement was that it made being a credibly accused abuser or someone convicted of sex crimes toxic. 

The radioactivity affects both abusers and their allies and apologists. It’s not enough to not be a sex criminal these days: it’s also thankfully become verboten to support rapists, sexual harassers and other abusers. 

That’s good news for humanity and victims but bad news for friends of rapists. 

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis learned this the hard way when Tony Ortega, who has written incisively and extensively about Scientology and its sins, leaked letters that the That Seventies Show stars sent the judge sentencing Masterson vouching for Masterson’s honesty and impeccable character. 

To Kutcher and Kunis, Masterson isn’t just someone sentenced to thirty years to life for committing multiple violent rapes: he’s a role model. He’s a mentor. He’s the most honest, ethical and responsible human being they’ve ever had the honor to know and work with. 

In Kutcher and Kunis’ letters they don’t just argue that Masterson is most assuredly not the monster who will be going to jail for DECADES for his unforgivable crimes. They damn near nominate him for Sainthood.  

The letters treat Masterson as maybe the greatest person who has ever lived but they’re full of praise for themselves as well. They give Masterson credit for being a kind, empathetic teacher of valuable life lessons but they also give themselves credit for being wise and open enough to eagerly accept the wisdom the convicted sex criminal gave them at various points in their lives. 

The letters are full of superlatives. Masterson isn’t just hailed as honest; Kutcher depicts him as someone who never lies. In his letter Kutcher gushes of his bestest pal and faultless personal hero, “As a friend, Danny has been nothing but a positive influence on me. He's an extraordinarily honest and intentional human being. Over (our) 25 year relationship I don't ever recall him lying to me.” 

So if Kutcher were to ever ask Masterson if he had committed the horrible crimes he’s going to jail for and he answered, “Nah, they’re just a bunch of haters” Kutcher would accept his words as the incontrovertible truth because Masterson has NEVER lied to him. Never! Not even a white lie! Not even a tiny, understandable little fib! What a man! I like to think of myself as being very honest but I will happily concede that, like EVERY HUMAN BEING SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME WITH THE NOTABLE EXCEPTION OF DANNY MASTERSON, APPARENTLY, I sometimes do not tell the truth. 

That’s because I’m human. All humans lie occasionally. That makes Danny Masterson, convicted rapist, super-human, like Superman if he used his powers primarily to silence women accusing him of sexual assault. 

Masterson is a living saint due to his unrelenting honesty and Christ-like character but also due to his hatred of drugs, except, of course, the ones he slipped into the drinks of the women he is going to jail for raping. 

Kutcher gushes later in the letter, “As a role model, Danny has consistently been an excellent one. I attribute not falling into the typical Hollywood life of drugs directly to Danny. Any time that we were to meet someone or interact with someone who was on drugs, or did drugs, he made it clear that that wouldn't be a good person to be friends with. And for me, that was an implication that if I were to do drugs, he wouldn't want to be friends with me, which is something I never would want to risk or jeopardize.”

Here’s the thing: you don’t get credit for being anti-drug except for the drugs you personally use to disorient the women you rape. That’s like being performatively, publicly anti-murder except for the people that you personally kill.

Not using drugs does not inherently make you a good person and using drugs does not make you a bad person. There are lots of horrible people who are one hundred percent sober and lots of good people who enjoy using drugs responsibly. I’m one of those people and I never lie, am a role model and hero to everyone around me and also I’m the greatest enemy of drugs in human history. Oh wait, that’s not me: that’s the fantasy version of Masterson found in Kunis and Kutcher’s letters.

I find the language that the Dude, Where’s My Car heartthrob uses fascinating and telling. It makes the actor seem desperate for his morally perfect costar’s approval but it also suggests that while Kutcher would never want to be friends with someone who smoked pot to help them sleep or deal with chronic pain, he does not have a problem being a friend, coworker and enthusiastic supporter of someone convicted of multiple rapes. 

Being anti-drug is meaningless if you’re against drugs with the notable exception of using them to disorient the women you intend on sexually assaulting. It’s not unlike Bill Cosby anointing himself the conscience of Black America and a tough but fair mentor to black men he felt needed to pull their pants up and stop with the potty mouths and hippety hop music while drugging and raping women over a period of decades. 

Hypocrisy about drugs has been a part of Scientology from the very beginning. Like Masterson, L. Ron Hubbard was very publicly anti-drugs and posited Scientology technology as the best way to get off drugs while being stoned out of his mind on pills for much of his adult life. You don’t write shit that crazy or come up with ideas that nutty with a sober mind. 

Masterson, and the “Church” of Scientology that enabled him seem to think that drugs, like psychology, are a pox on mankind but sexual assault is a minor issue that can be handled in-house, without the police or press getting involved. 

Kunis’ letter hits the exact same beats as her husband’s, including a segment that slaps a halo over the CONVICTED RAPIST’s head for being so heroically anti-drug. 

In prose that feels disconcertingly like what you might write on a college entrance essay Kunis writes, “One of the most remarkable aspects of Danny's character is his unwavering commitment to discouraging the use of drugs. His influence on me in this regard has been invaluable. In an industry where the pressures and temptations of substance use can be overwhelming, Danny played a pivotal role in guiding me away from such destructive paths. His dedication to avoiding all substances has inspired not only me but also countless others in our circle. Danny's steadfastness in promoting a drug-free lifestyle has been a guiding light in my journey through the entertainment world and has helped me prioritize my well-being and focus on making responsible choices.”

She circles back to Masterson’s aversion to mind-alterers at the end when she writes of the convicted sex criminal who could very well die in prison for his crimes, “(Masterson’s) dedication to leading a drug-free life and the genuine care he extends to others make him an outstanding role model and friend.”

To say that Kunis and Kutcher’s letters in support of Masterson were not warmly received would be a wild understatement. The costars turned married couple had the justified misfortune to be the internet’s Main Character of the Day, and NOBODY wants that dubious distinction. 

I’m guessing Kutcher and Kunis are grateful that Drew Barrymore turned out to be a scab because it took some of the negative attention off of them. 

So Kutcher and Kunis did what famous people do when they’ve been called out on their bullshit. They apologized. Or rather they issued one of those maddening non-apology apologies that just make things worse. Kutcher and Kunis’ non-apology apology took the form of a minute long video they taped looking haggard and unhealthy. Why? Probably because without Masterson’s guidance they instantly became huge drug addicts and are so strung out on heroin, crystal meth and all the other drugs that they haven’t slept or bathed in weeks. 

The justice system might have gone easier on the rapist if they’d known that he was personally responsible for a huge downturn in drug use throughout Southern California. 

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis are beautiful people. They’re not just actor/actress attractive; they’re Sexiest Man Alive/Hottest Woman on the Planet gorgeous. 

But for the sake of this video they are aggressively de-glammed. They look awful. They sound awful. Being held responsible for their support of a convicted rapist has clearly taken a toll on them, to the point where they’re seemingly unable to enjoy having hundreds of millions of dollars and being world famous. 

The choice to look ragged and unkempt was clearly intentional. They obviously figured that if they were well-dressed, wore make-up and seemed well rested, an audience out for blood would dismiss them as two more blow-dried Hollywood phonies spouting self-serving lies. 

By looking as bad as possible Kunis and Kutcher are implicitly assuring audiences that they’re just like them: parents who are stressed out and who may make mistakes out of loyalty rather than malice. 

An ashen and clearly uncomfortable Kutcher begins the video by droning, “We are aware of the pain that has been caused by the character letters that we wrote on behalf of Danny Masterson.”

Then Kunis takes over to emphatically state, “We support victims. We have done this historically through our work and will continue to do so in the future.”

The tag-teaming continues with a somber Kutcher explaining, “A couple of months ago Danny’s family reached out to us and they asked us to write character letters to represent the person that we knew for twenty five years so that the judge could take that into full consideration relative to the sentencing.”

Kunis, in one of her lesser performances, follows up with,  

“The letters were not written to question the legitimacy of the judicial system or the validity of the jury’s ruling.”

Then Kutcher further explains, “They were intended for the judge to read and not to undermine the testimony of the victims or re-traumatize them in any way. We would never want to do that. We’re sorry if that has taken place.” 

Kunis then ends the short but bitter video with “Our heart goes out to every single person who has ever been a victim of sexual assault, sexual abuse or rape” before leaning down and stopping the recording. 

According to the internet Kutcher is worth about two hundred million dollars. Kunis is similarly a millionaire many times over. With that kind of money they could DEFINITELY hire an assistant to hold onto the phone during one of the more important minutes of both Kutcher and Kunis’ career. 

What fascinates me about the video is the couple’s bizarre conviction that they did not need to record any more takes because the one that was rightly pilloried all over the internet was a keeper. 

From the couple’s words it’s obvious that when they wrote the character letters they thought that no one read them other than the judge in charge of Masterson’s sentencing. 

I’m not sure if they genuinely thought that the letters would never and could never be made public, or whether they merely hoped that their words of effusive praise for a convicted rapist would be for the judge’s eyes only. 

They were wrong. They were very, very wrong although the odious sentiments contained in their letters might have remained secret if Ortega, as part of his life’s work holding Scientology responsible for its crimes, had not made them public. 

Kunis insists, “the letters were not written to question the legitimacy of the judicial system or the validity of the jury’s ruling” but Kutcher and Kunis’ letters insist that Masterson is maybe the most honest man who has ever lived and the world’s greatest anti-drug warrior. 

That leads me to believe they are, in fact, questioning the validity of a jury’s ruling that their best friend, coworker, role model, mentor and personal hero lied when he pled Not Guilty to drugging and raping multiple women. 

When Kutcher says that the letters were “intended for the judge to read” the implication is that they were only for the judge to read.

Kutcher and Kunis thought that they could support their friend the convicted rapist in a way that no one other than Masterson, the judge and his supporters would know about and that consequently wouldn’t get them dragged in the press or hurt their reputations. 

They were, once again, wrong. The letters didn’t remain private. I can’t imagine how re-traumatizing it would be for a victim to log onto The Daily Beast and see letters describing the man who raped them as a consummate mensch and a wonderful human being anyone would be proud to call a friend, son or partner. How could you not be mortified to see the monster who assaulted you hailed as a man who embodies all that is good and noble about humanity?  

If Masterson never lies, as Kutcher asserts, then he obviously was not lying when he pled Not Guilty and said that he did not drug and rape his victims. 

If the letters had remained private they would not have re-traumatized victims. But they did not stay private. Instead everybody had a chance to read them and everyone had a chance to be horrified and disappointed by them. 

MeToo was all about shining a harsh light on sins and transgressions that were previously hid from the public in order to protect powerful people and their allies. 

That’s what Ortega did by making the letters public. He exposed a powerful couple’s complicity in Masterson’s crimes. 

We all learned something in the process. We learned that people other than judges read character letters and also that nothing good can come of supporting a convicted sex criminal, even one you consider a dear friend and a gift to humanity. 

Failure, Fiasco or Secret Success: Fiasco 

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