Ashton Kutcher reflects on Demi Moore's 'painful' miscarriage and their divorce 'failure': 'It's humiliating and embarrassing'

• Ashton Kutcher told Esquire that Demi Moore's miscarriage was "painful" for him.
• "For whatever reason, I had to have that experience," he said.

Ashton Kutcher recently opened up about his high-profile marriage to Demi Moore, the "painful" miscarriage she had, and their eventual divorce in 2013, which he called a "failure."

Speaking at length to Esquire, Kutcher described himself as an "asshole" in 2003, the year he met Moore. He was 25 and at the height of his fame — she was 40 and came with a built-in family, her three daughters with her ex-husband Bruce Willis.

Moore shared in her 2019 memoir "Inside Out" that before they married, she miscarried a child.

"Ashton did his best to connect with me in my grief. He tried to be there for me during the miscarriage, but he couldn't really understand what I was feeling," Moore wrote at the time.

"First of all, he hadn't carried this baby. And second, he was in his twenties at the time: he wasn't remotely late to the game of fatherhood. His possibilities were not running out, far from it. I was suddenly acutely aware that mine were," the "Ghost" star continued.

Kutcher reflected on the loss to Esquire reporter Madison Vain.

"Losing a kid that you think you're going to have, and that close to thinking you're going to have a kid, is really, really painful," he said. "Everyone deals with that in different ways." He reportedly didn't elaborate on how he coped with the loss.

"I wouldn't have gotten married to a woman that had three kids if I didn't love kids. The idea of having another kid would have been incredible," he added, noting that "for whatever reason, I had to have that experience."

He described his marriage to the "Strip Tease" star, their struggles, and his stepfather role as "a lot" to handle in his mid-twenties.

"I was twenty-six, bearing the responsibility of an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a twelve-year-old," Kutcher said referring to his former stepdaughters Tallulah, Scout, and Rumer, whom he still keeps in touch with. "That's how some teen parents must experience their twenties."

But their 2011 separation broke him. "Nothing makes you feel like a failure like divorce. Divorce feels like a wholesale fucking failure. You failed at marriage," he said.

The fact that rumors Kutcher was unfaithful to Moore swirled around their split was "humiliating and embarrassing," the "Your Place Or Mine" star said, though some of those rumors were true and some were false.

Speaking about the end of his marriage to Moore is difficult for Kutcher, he said. But eventually, he learned that at the end of a relationship "you own the shit you did wrong, and you go forward."

Kutcher has been married to his former "That '70s Show" co-star Mila Kunis since 2015 and they have two kids together, a boy and a girl. They keep the names of their kids private and their images off of social media.

When he learned that "Your Place Or Mine" was filming in Georgia for budget reasons, he told Netflix they could take the extra production cost out of his salary if they moved filming to Los Angeles.

"I have young kids, and I like my kids a lot," Kutcher, who reportedly makes most of his money by investing in tech companies like Uber and Pinterest, said to explain his decision. "I like spending time with them."

"I want to tell stories that deliver people joy. And I want to deliver stories that make people think. And I want to play characters that are fun to play. And I'm willing to work my ass off to do that," he said, explaining how he chooses his acting roles.

"Your Place Or Mine" will be released on Netflix February 10.