CNN
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In a rare interview, twin brothers Ashton and Michael Kutcher opened up about their bond and their breakup.
The couple appeared in the new Paramount+ series. “The Checkup with Dr. David Agus”.
Agus, who is Ashton Kutcher’s doctor, spoke to the actor for the first time about his battle with the autoimmune disease vasculitis.
He later sat down with the brothers to discuss Michael Kutcher’s cerebral palsy and also the time he nearly died as a young man after contracting viral myocarditis which caused his heart to enlarge and fail.
Both brothers were excited to stop Michael’s heart while Ashton was visiting him in the intensive care unit.
“I walk into the room and go ‘Whoa,'” Ashton Kutcher said, fighting back tears. “I’m like… ‘Not all is well.’ And he’s still in the room and I know that noise because now I’ve been visiting occasionally.”
He said he considered jumping off a balcony to help his brother since his heart would be compatible. Michael Kutcher received a donor heart within 24 hours.
He later had to undergo open-heart surgery after a blood clot was discovered. Meanwhile, Ashton Kutcher’s career as a model and actor began to take off, and he said he felt guilty.
The “That 70s Show” star said she wondered, “How did I get so lucky?”
“For my brother… being born with cerebral palsy, then having a heart transplant, then having this random blood clot, these things where you say, ‘Who has to go through that?'” he said.
Michael Kutcher finally called him, he said.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Every time you feel sorry for me, you put me down,'” Ashton Kutcher said. “He said, ‘This is the only life I’ve ever known, so stop feeling sorry for the only thing I have.’ And that then created a complete shift back to where I think we are today, which is the same again.”
Michael Kutcher told Agus that the brothers broke up due to jealousy on his part after his brother became “a household name”.
“There was a time when I saw that he was getting more attention than I was,” said Michael Kutcher. “That got me to a place where he was jealous.”
The brothers talked it out, Michael Kutcher said, adding: “And once I got all the fame out and everything, I was able to, you know, get back to him.”
They also had a problem after the actor shared publicly that his brother had cerebral palsy, something that Michael Kutcher had not shared. Ashton Kutcher said during the interview that he didn’t know his sister had been keeping it a secret.
Michael Kutcher is now a disability advocate.
