Ashton Kutcher And Mila Kunis Started Out As Friends With Benefits

Ashton Kutcher No Strings Attached Mila Kunis Friends With Benefits

There's a tremendous irony to Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis' relationship. Beyond the fact that they both started their careers on Fox's long-running sitcom That '70s Show - where they played Kelso and Jackie, respectively -- the actors were also at the forefront of two separate 2011 romantic comedies with very similar premises. The first movie was No String Attached, where Kutcher played Natalie Portman's, shall we say, intimate friend. The second film was Friends with Benefits, which found Kunis palling around with Justin Timberlake in some not-very-PG-appropriate ways. The irony that Kunis and Kutcher actually became a real-life couple was obvious to many, but that was apparently just the beginning. For as it turns out -- before the actors' relationship got serious -- Kutcher and Kunis were actually friends with benefits. Just take a moment to let that soak in.

During a recent appearance on Marc Maron's podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Mila Kunis paid a visit to the garage to promote her new comedy, The Spy Who Dumped Me, which comes out this weekend. During their recorded conversation, Kunis' marriage to Ashton Kutcher came up. She admitted that when they were both single and looking to mingle, Kutcher and Kunis decided to go method and actually become, ahem, real friends with benefits.

I did a movie called Friends With Benefits. He did a movie that was very similar called No Strings Attached. We lived our movies out. We were just like, let's just hook up. Let's have fun. We're both single. We both trust each other. Everything's great.

Much like the movies they starred in, when Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis decided to go the extra mile and make their friendship a little more intimate, they discovered their romantic feelings for one another were not exclusive to the bedroom. And, of course, the rest is history. The actors got married in 2015, and they share two children together: Wyatt (3) and Dimitri (1). It's truly a happy ending worthy of a romantic comedy, and that is only fitting here.

Before she found herself in a relationship (with benefits) with Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis was famously in a long-standing relationship with another actor: Macaulay Culkin. The actress recently recounted their break-up on another podcast, Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert, and she admitted to being the reason why the relationship didn't work out. While the break-up was messy, by her recollection, Kunis and Culkin are now on good terms. Similarly, when Kutcher appeared on Shepard's podcast, he talked about his healing process for when his marriage to Demi Moore led to a divorce. He admits he spent a good week in the mountains with no food, no technology and a whole lot of tea. The unorthodox approach apparently healed him.

But that's the past. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis are happily in love with each other, and they're hoping to make it last. For those who appreciate a good heap of irony, though, this story is a plentiful dish.

Will Ashton

Will is an entertainment writer based in Pittsburgh, PA. His writing can also be found in The Playlist, Cut Print Film, We Got This Covered, The Young Folks, Slate and other outlets. He also co-hosts the weekly film/TV podcast Cinemaholics with Jon Negroni and he likes to think he's a professional Garfield enthusiast.