Ashton Kutcher wants to prevent and stop human trafficking so much so he mostly retired from acting to make a bigger impact against it. Yet he is okay with a rapist cause it’s his “friend”. Talk about a fuckin hypocrite. More proof that the famous and wealthy live by a different standard. No matter how good they seem.
More proof that the famous and wealthy live by a different standard. No matter how good they seem.
You don’t need to be famous or wealthy to overlook or cover up the crimes of someone you know. It happens every day among people of every socioeconomic status, between friends and within families and businesses. In this case he isn’t even trying to cover for him, just wrote a letter supporting him at his trial based on what he knows of the guy. I don’t think it was in good taste, but also don’t think it’s worth shunning Ashton Kutcher over
I dunno. Seems like an incredibly fucked up thing to do when it comes to the severity of the crimes. At some point, you turn your back on someone and don’t support them because what they did is beyond the pale. It’s all about context. Being a rapist doesn’t have any context in which I could support you.
Stealing from a store? I got your back. You killed the person that murdered your family? I’ll help you bury the body. You raped women? Get fucked, dickhead. You’re not who I thought you were and you don’t deserve me by your side.
Thank you I know someone who raped some women. We shuned that fucking rapist and turn on back on him.
What he did writing a letter in support of his friend takes away all the good he was doing. Fuck Ashton. He should’ve have turn his back and stay quite.
This is my take. Ashton takes his job very seriously, but if he wanted to remain neutral on this he should have just shut the fuck up and accepted the court rulings like the rest of us.
Im confused. OP wrote the letter was written during his trial, and you said he should have accepted the ruling.
Was this letter written before or after the ruling?
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were two of more than 50 people who wrote to the judge in the Danny Masterson sexual assault trial to support the convicted actor ahead of his sentencing, per court documents obtained by Variety.
I had to look it up because the dates weren’t in the article, but he was convicted in May, and these letters were dated between July and August. He wasn’t sentenced until just a few days ago.
deleted by creator
I mean, if a friend was credibly accused of the stuff he did, I wouldn’t be writing any letters of support. There’s a limit to what you’d do for someone in the name of friendship.
mm hmmm, that’s a former friend right there. i don’t put up with abusive or toxic behavior.
Exactly.
If I found out my best friend was a rapist I would drop him before the ink on his arrest warrant dried
Nice friend you are.
You understand that false allegations happen all the time? This wasn’t, obviously, because he got convicted. But if you drop your friends on an arrest warrant, I wouldn’t want to be your friend.
That’s not what they said. They didn’t say they discovered their hypothetical friend was a rapist because of the arrest warrant.
It could be as simple as another friend telling them she was raped.
No, that person said that IF they found out their friend was a rapist because of an arrest.
An arrest is upon suspicion, and in rape cases, many times an allegation. That doesn’t mean the person is guilty, that is not how our justice system works. False rape allegations unfortunately hace happened all too often and mostly end up in the victims life being utterly destroyed. The victim here not being the lying rape claimer, but the person who reiceived the false allegation.
It’s also a really shitty situation for people around. Imagine being a mother and your son gets a rape allegation.
The problem is that rape is very hard to prove. If it happenend a few hours ago, no condom, okay then you have some evidence. But was it rape or consensual sex? If it happened years ago it becomes even harder to prove and a lot of times it’s a he said-she said game and unless there is more actual concrete evidence, a judge isn’t going to send a person to jail on a single allegation.
In this case ther were multiple independent testimonies, that helps
But when your friend is accused of rape thrn I guess it up to you, who do you believe? O hoor my friends would know me and trust and believe me.
Then again, maybe that is what Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher did. Trust and believe their friend, and now they “Support” a rapist
I never said “because of an arrest”
I mean my comment explicitly mentions becoming aware that my best friend was a rapist, not was accused of it
I suppose I could have said “if one of my friends was credibly accused of rape and it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed it, I would no longer be their friend,” but that doesn’t quite have the same kick, the same pizazzy oomph
My point was, it’s beyond unacceptable for these two to defend a rapist in any way. It’s not defensible just because they were friends. They’re horrible people, end of.
2-10%, that’s about right. Do you want I ben part of that statistic, or so you prefer the “innocent until proven guilty” which is the basis of our entire justice system
Western justice systems are not principally designed to send that guilty to jail, their designed to keep the innocent out.
Any friend that rapes is no friend of mine, IDGAF how long I’ve known you or what we’ve been through
I could say the same about Nazis, pedereasses, etc - some things are way bigger than friendship
Didn’t Kutcher kick Masterson off his show, “The Ranch”, when he found out about the allegations?
I don’t know what’s going though any of their minds and I don’t know much about the case, but writing letters for your former friend that’s a piece of shit is common. 30 years is a very long time. Longer than Cosby got. So it couldn’t be good. But I wonder what the details are before I immediately jump to “most of the cast are assholes by association”. Also, did no one know about this during the show? Mila even had to stage kiss and hug the guy when their characters were dating.
I get asking for mercy for family or a close friend, even when they’ve committed crimes, heinous or otherwise. I’ll chalk that up to human emotions.
But ffs, read the room a bit.
His dedication to leading a drug-free life and the genuine care he extends to others make him an outstanding role model and friend.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Danny’s character is his unwavering commitment to discouraging the use of drugs.
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 make responsible choices.
Saying stuff like that when he’s convicted of drugging victims before taping them is just nuts. Even by some sense of stupidity you think you’re just trying to highlight that he’s not a habitual drug user, you’re essentially just highlighting how calculated his actions were by drugging his victims.
Also, in what manner would personal drug use have anything to do with him being a rapist? Their attempted defense is irrelevant.
I commented elsewhere that I wondered if they believe he’s innocent. If they truly believe this is a miscarriage of justice could these letters be written with his appeal in mind? There’s no physical evidence as I understand, maybe they’re going for the “this guy is so sober he wouldn’t even know how to get drugs” angle? I’m just talking out of my arse now but I’m so confused by the level of support for him I can’t help but clutch at straws to try to explain it.
I’m just talking out of my arse now but I’m so confused by the level of support for him I can’t help but clutch at straws to try to explain it.
manipulators be manipulating.
Rapists and other abusers are known to very often charm everyone around them. It isn’t only a way to lure in their victims, but it’s also a great defence against suspicion (“he’s such a nice guy, he could never”) which has proven to work over and over and over again (and those are just the most famous cases off the top of my head, but the pattern repeats often at all levels of wealth and fame/anonymity).
abusers have to be charming, if they weren’t then they’d have no one to manipulate.
It’s not a defense, it’s just a character statement to be taken into account in sentencing. I too think Kutcher shouldn’t have written it, but it’s not any kind of defense of the charges
Yeah, he would’ve been a better person if he did more drugs and less raping.
I didn’t read the rest of the letter, the paragraphs expressing nondrug use sounded exactly like it needed this to be pointed out. What a silly bar anyway, did you use drugs or not. Then to hear he used them on his victims…these letters are just clueless.
So … what they’re saying is that he was stone cold sober when he was drugging his victims? That’s not a great look.
a look of an opportunistic predator.
so let me get this straight, danny would get drugs and instead of using it himself, he used it on unsuspecting victims and then taped himself raping them. and this has been a “a guiding light in (ashtons) journey”… “of making responsible choices”…? what.the.fuck?!
At this point it’s basically telling on yourself (if it isn’t skeletons in his own closet, at bare minimum it’s saying he’s a piece of shit who openly supports a rapist. A convicted one at that).
People who preach often about not doing the minor vices, are usually engaged in some heinous shit; the preaching bit is a cover both lying to others and most importantly themselves
Probably a bit of, “I can’t believe my friend would do these bad things.” People close to someone are harder to convince without seeing things first hand or hearing from other people they are close to.
Everyone is losing their minds about this. And they are right to.
But also?
This is incredibly common in court cases. These kinds of letters can make a huge difference during sentencing. To put it in context, a cousin got arrested for going on a burglary spree. Nothing violent but he was a real piece of shit. He and his lawyer basically asked everyone he had ever had a positive interaction with to write letters. I tentatively agreed because of his mother but they sent my letter back because I wasn’t advocating strong enough. Because if you think someone “deserves” the minimum sentence? You ask for them to be (not the right word but) exonerated. And so forth.
Similarly, we were asked to write these months before the trial actually began. They didn’t end up using my letter, but they requested the people whose letters they were going to use to attend the trial and they pretended it was written between conviction and sentencing. When you have no defense whatsoever, you do what you can to try and get leniency.
Personally? I think enough of this was “known” for the past few decades that I think anyone who would write a letter for masterson (aside from maybe his family of deranged cultists) are right assholes (they are assholes for different reasons). But I would take the “they wrote these after hearing the testimony of the victims” with a grain of salt. Same with the strength of what they are asking for. Doesn’t make it right, but is still good to have context. Especially in the case of celebrities, there are good odds they had their publicists write these when they were asked a few years back and forgot about them.
And I’ll just add on. scientology has lost a LOT of its power over the past decade or so and is basically held up by the will of tom cruise running around on camera. But they still have a LOT of influence in hollywood and masterson and his family have already been known to shitlist people who cross them (including apparently their own father?). I doubt anyone in the core cast and crew would need to worry about that at this point, but I can definitely see some of the names on the list being in that space of “Well, I either write a letter or don’t work for a decade”. Doesn’t stop them from being an asshole, but does impact how much of an asshole they are (irony!).
Your experience and insight are incredibly valuable here. Thank you.
Both Kutcher and Kunis wrote about Masterson’s drug-free lifestyle, and noted he was a positive force on their lives. During the trial, prosecutors said Masterson drugged women before sexually assaulting them.
Such a long and glowing article for a man who drugged women to rape them. Including the positive quotes from his friends made sense, but a bit more perspective was needed than the few sentences discussing his crimes.
I wondered if it was a “presented without comment” kinda thing? Shade on everyone without explicit condemnation? Maybe the writer was told to write a sympathetic piece and just couldn’t bring themselves to? The more I type the more wishful I realise this thinking is… 😕
I don’t see Variety as the pinacle of journalism whatsoever.
Imagine giving a fuck about celebrities or their affairs.
Hope all the victims get every last cent of their recovery processes paid for on top of the prison sentencings
I don’t personally believe in long prison sentences because I know the American judicial system isn’t at all about rehab but I’m also a cis dude who generally doesn’t have to worry about getting raped so I’m not gonna make that call for people who gotta worry about that
When did they write the letters? Was it before any of the details of the case had been made public or after? Were they personally written or did PR firms send them out as a matter of course? I don’t really give a shit about celebrities or their personal lives and I’m all for a good old fashioned internet pile on, but for some reason I’d like to know the details first.
After he was found guilty, before he was sentenced
Masterson had been facing 30 years to life, which is the maximum sentence allowed by law. His defense was asking for 15 years to life, so those who wrote letters to the judge were likely aware he would be getting at least 15 years in prison.
Idunno. If my best friend was facing between 15 and 30 years in prison for multiple rapes, I don’t think I would be begging the judge to reduce his sentence because he’s such a good guy aside from the raping
Also he’s a scientologist, so fuck him
But, y’know, Will Smith slapping Chris Rock was just beyond the pale for Kunis. Gotcha.
Definitely the wrong thing to do, but also something that could be dealt with with a financial penalty and a sincere apology. When Masterson isn’t even admitting to his crimes, celebrities advocating for him is akin to what Will Smith did, using a position of privilege against the victims.
That’s not the point. The point is Kunis said that was unconscionable in that case, and in this one, she’s defending a serial rapist.
I’m not disagreeing.
Rape is OK as long as it’s not sex trafficking.
-Ashton Kutcher, probably
… trafficking.
This is why letters of character should not be considered in a court of law.
Idunno, it shows me that Kutcher and Kunis are awful people. I’d rather know that so I can avoid giving them money in the future
Luckily it didn’t seem to affect the verdict too much, he got 30 years.
The article states 50 others wrote in support of this rapist. They should all be ashamed of themselves.
“Other stars from “The 70’s Show” who wrote to the judge include Debra Jo Rupp, who played Kitty on the sitcom, and Kurtwood Smith, who played Red. Masterson’s famous family members wrote letters in his support, including his siblings Alanna Masterson (“The Walking Dead”), Christopher Masterson (“Malcolm In the Middle”), Jordan Masterson (“Last Man Standing”), as well as his brother-in-law Billy Baldwin and his wife, the actor and model, Bijou Phillips. Other Hollywood names who wrote to the judge include actor Giovanni Ribisi; Jim Patterson, creator of Netflix’s “The Ranch;” Masterson’s former publicist, Jenni Weinman; and TV director, David Trainer, who worked on “The 70’s Show” and “The Ranch.””
Whelp, whole list of people who can get fucked and whose work I will not be patronizing.
The only person in that show I had any respect for as an actor was Kurtwood Smith.
So much for that.
Interesting that it doesnt say if Topher Grace (who played Eric in that 70s show) or Laura Perpon (who played Donna) wrote in support of Masterson. Either the article left it out for brevity or they didnt write in support because they dont support Masterson. Would be interested to see what the situation is there
I’m glad Jim Gaffigan doesn’t appear to be on that list.
These two cunts can live with that rapist in his prison cell if they love him so much.
I’ll sum up my feelings about this in four words.
Who gives a shit?
Here are four more:
Celebrity 👏 gossip 👏 isn’t 👏 news 👏.
i lost any kind of respect i had for mila and ashton.
What does Scientology have on these two? Yuck.
Are they Scientologists too? I didn’t know that. It could explain why they’re publicly supporting him I guess.
Not to my knowledge. (Didn’t look it up, but thought it was him and Laura Prepon that were. And she might have left, not sure.) Just was referring to how Scientology has a history of blackmail.
Hollywood and those involved in the movie industry are a bunch of self righteous weirdos.
