People have been left horrified by a resurfaced clip of a then-25-year-old Ashton Kutcher talking about Hilary Duff and the Olsen twins when they were still minors.
If you need reminding, Ashton, now 48, is best known for being an actor, and got his big break at age 20 when he was cast in That ’70s Show back in 1998. However, he also dominated early ‘00s pop culture thanks to his MTV reality show Punk’d, which first aired in 2003.
Ashton hosted the hidden-camera show, which saw celebrities get pranked in spectacular fashion. For example, one of the very first — and most infamous — pranks of the series saw Justin Timberlake be led to believe that government agents were seizing his home and valuables because of unpaid taxes:
And in 2003, 15-year-old Hilary was the subject of an episode that began with what she thought was a routine driving lesson. However, while they were stopped at a stop sign, her instructor suddenly got out of the car and confronted another driver for not being patient enough, attacking his vehicle with a baseball bat and throwing his smoothie at him.
The other motorist then followed Hilary and her instructor, and the two men got into a physical confrontation before an accomplice ordered Hilary out of the learner car and drove off with it. To make matters worse, the instructor blamed Hilary for the theft, leaving her visibly emotional as he told her that she’d have to buy him a new car because she “works in the movies.”
Hilary was understandably relieved when Ashton then appeared and joked that he had seen “the whole thing,” revealing that she was actually on Punk’d.
But it’s Ashton’s introduction to the segment that has triggered fierce backlash, with the star saying direct to camera: “Hilary Duff is in Lizzie McGuire. She also has an album out, she’s going to be in a movie called Cheaper by the Dozen, and she’s one of the girls that we’re all waiting for to turn 18. Along with the Olsen twins.”
As mentioned, Hilary was just 15 years old at the time, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen had recently turned 17 years old. Notably, Hilary and Ashton had just worked together on Cheaper by the Dozen at the time that this Punk’d episode was filmed, but the movie was not yet released.
Needless to say, when this clip resurfaced on Reddit this past weekend, people had a lot of thoughts, with one of the comments reading: “As a 26 year old I don't understand how anyone my age could look at a teenager and see anything other than a child.”
Somebody else noted: “the fact they worked together in Cheaper by the Dozen which came out the same year as him saying this makes this worse 🤢” Another comment adds: “It’s actually SO revolting how open grown men are about preying on girls.”
One more commented: “Not only did he say it, but THEY KEPT IT IN THE EDIT! Jesus f’in Christ. MTV was the worst with this stuff.”
MTV / Via reddit.com
Others recalled that this was — disturbingly — the norm during this time, with one writing: “It's unfathomable how common this stuff was back then. I'm 36 and I remember seeing it firsthand. Mainly the Olsen twins. Even as a pre-teen // teenager it disturbed me that it was simply normalized.”
“I’m about your age and distinctly remember feeling especially skeeved by the Emma Watson ones,” somebody else replied. Another added: “My local 7-11 had a poster with dry erase and they’d update the countdown to the Olsen twins turning 18. I was probably in my early 20s and didn’t get it because I grew up watching these girls as literal babies on tv. So it really made no sense to me why seemingly all of Gen X and the Boomers were salivating at them turning 18.”
But one more made an excellent point about the hopeful implications of how “jarring” these clips now are to watch, saying: “This was unfortunately really common at the time. Look at Howard Stern interviews or Perez Hilton blogs. Women and girls had to deal with a lot of disgusting shit. I’m glad it’s jarring in retrospect, that means progress.”
It’s worth mentioning that this troubling clip has resurfaced just weeks after Christina Ricci went viral for calling out Joel Madden for dating Hilary when she was just 16 years old, and he was 25, which you can read more about here.
As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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