Demi Moore sweeping down the Oscars’ red carpet tomorrow night, a favourite to win best actress, was almost unimaginable 13 years ago. Moore, 62, was at rock bottom in 2012. She passed out on friend’s floor after inhaling nitrous oxide and smoking synthetic cannabis, had a seizure and an ambulance was called. Her marriage to Ashton Kutcher was on the rocks and her daughters were not talking to her. She thought: “Is this life…because if this is it, I’m done.” Now the Ghost and A Few Good Men star’s career renaissance is nearly complete. Bookies are tipping her to beat Mikey Madison in Anora to win the Oscar tonight. Moore’s role as an ageing actress recapturing her lost youth in the body horror movie The Substance has already landed her a Golden Globe and a dizzying number of offers of future work.
For her close friends, it’s just what she deserves after such a tumultuous time both professionally and personally. They say the breakdown of her marriage to Kutcher nearly sank her. A pal said: “Of the many tribulations Demi has endured, from her chaotic family upbringing to her drink and eating disorder, you could make a case for this divorce hitting her hardest. It’s one of the saddest things she’s gone through. It’s no doubt made her tougher, and perhaps more equipped to cope with whatever life throws at her. To see her from that nadir to now… is extraordinary.”
Moore and actor Kutcher met in 2003 when she was 40 and he was 25. She wrote in her memoir Inside Out: “It was the way I’d always wished it could be: love that felt pure and simple and profound.” He instantly clicked with Rumer, Tallulah and Scout, her daughters with former husband Bruce Willis.
On a holiday in Miami, Moore discovered she was pregnant and, six weeks later, Kutcher proposed on the beach at sunset. She said: “I didn’t want him to feel he had to marry him just because I was pregnant. But I loved him. And I knew he loved me.” Moore lost the baby six months into the pregnancy and believes that Demi says the cracks first started to appear.
“He couldn’t really understand what I was feeling….he hadn’t carried the baby…and he was in his 20s at the time,” she says. She’d also started drinking again despite a previous battle with alcohol. “I wanted to be that girl. The girl who could have a glass of wine at dinner, or do a tequila shot at the party. In my mind, Ashton wanted that too,” she says. Despite being on shaky ground, the pair tied the knot in a low-key wedding that they managed to keep under wraps. Other addictions prevailed too….including to prescription drugs. Eventually she put herself through rehab but she claims Ashton was unimpressed.
“I felt like he was angry with me for having this problem in the first place,” she wrote in her memoir. But worse was to come for the couple when they decided to have a threesome because it was a fantasy of his. “I wanted to show him how great and fun I could be,” she wrote. But after a story broke he’d slept with a 21-year-old he’d met at a bowling alley, she blamed herself for bringing a “third party” into the marriage and that they’d “blurred the lines.”
Even more cheating claims surfaced after a Google Alert flashed up on her phone. Sara Leal told how she had a hot tub tryst with the actor on the night of Ashton and Demi’s sixth wedding anniversary. “He was a good lover,” Leal said. “But if I had known from the beginning he was married, none of this would have happened.”
Demi was left floored. “There were quotes from a young blonde replaying Ashton’s pickup lines,” she said. “I felt sick to my stomach: I knew those words. I knew she wasn’t lying.” Unable to move on from the betrayal, Ashton moved out a week after her 49th birthday. The split sent her spiralling as she lost extreme amounts of weight, and led to the incident in her living room in which an ambulance was called. Despite once earning a record £10million for Striptease, the offers had dried up. “I could barely function, “ she said of that time. “I rarely left the house, except to let the dogs out.” But slowly and surely she managed to get her life back on track through treatment, and her close circle of friends. She also healed her rift with her children who hated her drug use. A friend said: “It was a dark time for Demi but she pulled herself out of it and all credit to her. She deserves every success she gets.” For Ashton, who is now married to Mila Kunis, he was less than impressed with his ex-wife going public on their marriage in such excruciating detail. “I was f****** pissed,” he told a magazine. And when the book was published he tweeted: “I was about to push the button on a really snarky tweet. Then I saw my son, daughter, and wife and I deleted it.”
But they’ve since called truce, and Mila even starred in a Super Bowl commercial with Demi, with the pair poking fun at Ashton. The friend added: “Life goes on and Demi has dusted herself down and got on with it. She has dated again, and got on with things. “Not many can come back from such professional and personal ignominy…..let alone potentially win an Oscar.” All eyes are on what she does next and execs have praised her choice of film next, I Love Boosters from director Boots Riley. “She could have taken a big pay cheque given her success in The Substance, but opted for a much more interesting choice,” said a friend. “We’re seeing the second coming of Demi.”
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