Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have been in the news the past few days — and not for good reasons. Ironically, they’ve been in the news for something I’m pretty sure they didn’t think would come out: they wrote character letters for convicted rapist Danny Masterson.
Yeah, you read that right, they wrote character letters for their friend, who is also a convicted rapist. Because, I guess to them, the second part doesn’t matter. Only the friend part does.
Ironically, they did this AFTER he was already convicted of rape, so it’s not like they can even pretend they were just hopeful that he was innocent. Nah, they knew he’d been found guilty and they thought hey, a good time to tell everyone about how nice he was when I met him, over two decades ago!
There’s really no defense for the letters, and they clearly weren’t concerned about what they were writing as they did. They didn’t care for the victims or their justice. Of course, once the internet came for them, they released this “apology,” if we can even call it that.
I’m about to start a class about apologies for celebrities. First, avoid the word IF. Make sure you don’t say it. Second, acknowledge what you did wrong. Third, don’t make excuses. Ashton and Mila get all of that wrong in their so-called apology, which is just a blatant attempt to distract from the deserved negative attention they’ve gotten lately.
They introduce the dreaded IF word. They never make any mention of Masterson’s crimes or his victims. And, then they try to trick us into thinking because they’ve advocated for victims before we should forget that their activism only counts when it’s easy.
Celebrities are hardly role models. They are people, just like us, and more often than not, messier than we could ever hope to be because no one ever tells them no and they have a lot of money. But Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have proven they are the worst kind of celebrities — and this time, it doesn’t even have to do with personal hygiene! — the kind that only cares about their rich friends and doesn’t even care to pretend.
And that’s the kind we don’t ever want to support.
