Ashton Kutcher has addressed the rape charges that his former That ’70s Show co-star Danny Masterson is facing. In an interview with Esquire, Kutcher said he hopes Masterson is innocent, but admitted he “can’t know” the truth without being one of the people involved in the case.
While speaking to Esquire, Kutcher said he wants Masterson “to be found innocent of the charges brought against him” because he doesn’t want the allegations against the man who served as such a mentor to him to be true. At the same time, Kutcher said he feels for “anybody who feels like they were violated in any way.”
“Ultimately, I can’t know,” he added. “I’m not the judge. I’m not the jury. I’m not the DA. I’m not the victim. And I’m not the accused. And so, in that case, I don’t have a space to comment. I just don’t know.”
According to Kutcher, Masterson served as the de facto leader of the young cast of That ’70s Show due to his experience in the industry, helping to keep the actors off drugs and away from bad decisions. “He’s like, ‘One fucking rule: Don’t do anything fucking stupid and fuck this up. Because if you fuck it up, you fuck it up for everybody,'” Kutcher recalled Masterson saying.
All the while, Masterson may have been going against his own advice. The actor was arrested in 2020 and charged with sexually assaulting three women between 2001 and 2003 while he starred on That ’70s Show. He is facing a retrial for three charges of rape after his first trial ended with a hung jury in November.
As a result of the charges, Masterson’s That ’70s Show character Steven Hyde doesn’t appear in Netflix’s reboot series That ’90s Show.
