A difficult transition from Ukraine to Los Angeles.
A breakup that she blames on herself.
A role that demanded a frightening physical transformation.
Here are some tragic details about actress Mila Kunis Mila Kunis.
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher share a comfortable life in L.A. nowadays, but she didn't always
live in the lap of luxury.
The future actress grew up in poverty as a first-generation immigrant along with her
parents and her older brother, Michael.
Kunis was born in Ukraine, back when the country was still a territory of the Soviet Union.
When she was just seven years old, she and her family fled to the United States with
only $250 to their names.
It was good timing, because the Soviet Union would end up collapsing later that year.
Even though the Kunis family struggled financially, they always took good care of each other.
When Mila showed interest in acting as a child, her parents were willing to make massive sacrifices
so she could take classes.
"It was $890, and we had $900 in the bank account."
Thankfully, the Kunis family's fortunes improved after Mila's acting career took off.
Even though their daughter's net worth is estimated to be in the tens of millions today,
Mark and Elvira Kunis have never accepted a single cent of her acting money.
"I've never been able to pay for dinner."
The Kunis family, who are of Jewish heritage, left the Soviet Union after experiencing religious
suppression.
Although Mila was taught to hide who she was while living in Soviet Ukraine, she is still
incredibly proud of her roots to this day.
In 2011, she told The Daily Telegraph,
"My whole family was in the Holocaust.
My grandparents passed and not many survived.
After the Holocaust, in Russia you were not allowed to be religious.
So my parents raised me to know I was Jewish.
You know who you are inside."
Unfortunately, Kunis wasn't able to feel safe in her own school because of all the racism
she and her Jewish classmates experienced.
Instances of antisemitic bullying were commonplace during her elementary education in Los Angeles.
She recalled,
"One of my friends who grew up in Russia, she was in second grade.
She came home one day crying.
Her mother asked why and she said on the back of her seat there was a swastika.
This is a country that obviously does not want you."
Thankfully, Kunis never let the bullies take away her pride.
Amidst Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kunis and Kutcher started a GoFundMe
page to raise money for Ukrainians affected by the conflict.
The two have raised over $35 million so far, surpassing their original goal of $30 million.
Today, Kunis considers herself a "proud American," but the "Family Guy" star had a difficult
time when she suddenly found herself immersed in American culture.
"My mom kept telling me that we were moving up the street."
"And then we flew to LA."
"My mother's a filthy liar!"
Kunis' first year of American school was apparently so hard for her that she can't even remember
it.
She told The LA Times,
"I blocked out second grade completely.
I have no recollection of it.
[...] It was because I cried every day.
I didn't understand the culture.
I didn't understand the people.
I didn't understand the language."
Not only did Kunis not know how to speak English at that age, but she was also completely unfamiliar
with American culture and customs.
She told Howard Stern,
"When I came to America in '91 I was ethnic.
Everything about me stood out.
I didn't speak the language, I wasn't blonde and blue eyes, I didn't eat peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches [...] I didn't know what jeans were."
Kunis has admitted that she first felt embarrassed that her immigrant family didn't fit in, especially
since her parents still didn't speak English when she had already learned.
Luckily, she was able to adjust, and she's since come to terms with her past.
Today, she tries her hardest to keep her children in touch with their Ukrainian background.
Although it seems ridiculous that GQ's 2011 "Knockout of the Year" could have possibly
been made fun of for her looks, it's the truth.
Kunis has said she was consistently ridiculed for her physical appearance when she was growing
up, often so badly that she'd come home in tears.
She told OK Magazine,
"I grew into my face, I had a very funny looking face when I was little.
I had, like, big eyes, big lips, big ears.
But when I was little I was constantly being made fun of for having big eyes and that was
awful.
I used to come home crying: 'Why do I have big eyes?'
And my parents were like: 'You're crazy!'"
Even though Kunis was named "Sexiest Woman Alive" by Esquire in 2012, she still finds
herself feeling self-conscious about her looks sometimes.
She told Yahoo,
"I am incredibly self-conscious in real life about every part of my body."
Fortunately, Kunis is a firm believer that what's on the inside is much more important
than what's on the outside.
As she told The Los Angeles Times,
"Your looks are going to die out, and then what's going to be left?"
Before her marriage to her "That '70's Show" co-star Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis was in
a years-long courtship with "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin.
At the time of their relationship, Culkin was arguably the more well-known name, and
his level of celebrity was something Kunis often had trouble grappling with.
In her 2016 chat with Howard Stern, Kunis opened up about the challenges of dating someone
who was getting so much "abnormal" attention.
While some celebs love being in the spotlight, Kunis and Culkin preferred to fly under the
radar as much as possible.
She told Parade in 2007,
"We're incredibly private, and I think we relish the privacy we do actually have and
are able to sustain it."
Kunis and Culkin dated from 2002 to 2011.
Things didn't end well, but she takes full responsibility for their split.
She told Dax Shepard on his "Armchair Expert" podcast,
"I had a horrible, horrible, horrible breakup.
I f—d up.
I was an a—hole in my 20s and I'll be the first to admit it.
[...] It's f—d up what I did and it's f—d up how I did it."
Mila Kunis was absolutely thrilled when she found out that she had landed a role in Darren
Aronofsky's ballet drama "Black Swan," but actually shooting the film was no easy feat.
The movie, which follows professional ballerinas as they prepare for a production of "Swan
Lake," required Kunis and her co-star, Natalie Portman, to engage in grueling physical tasks
every single day for months.
Prior to the production of "Black Swan," Kunis had no experience with any kind of dancing
— let alone ballet.
She endured a number of injuries during her training, including a torn ligament and a
dislocated shoulder.
Suffice it to say, she was eager to hang up her leotard once and for all after filming
wrapped.
"I will never dance again.
I promise you, I will never put on that pointe shoe ever again."
Since she had to lose 20 pounds for the role in such a short amount of time, her body hasn't
been the same since production on "Black Swan" began.
She told Harper's Bazaar,
"My shape is different.
When I got down to 95 pounds, I was muscles, like a little brick house, but skin and bones.
When I gained it back, it went to completely different areas [...] All the weight that
left my chest went to my side hip, my stomach."
Even though the project took a toll on her body and left her with literal scars, Kunis
has insisted that she doesn't regret participating in the film at all.
Although Kunis is certainly grateful for the success of her acting career and all the perks
that come from stardom, she has admitted that she has a hard time dealing with the press.
She's been particularly put off by the tabloids that share untrue stories about her personal
life.
In one video uploaded to Ashton Kutcher's Instagram account in 2019, he and Kunis share
a laugh over a tabloid that claimed the two of them were in the midst of a divorce.
Of course, that couldn't be further from the truth.
While decades in the industry have made it easy for her to laugh at the rumors and brush
them aside, they cause a lot of stress for her family members who don't know the whole
story.
At one point during her pregnancy, a nasty rumor on the front of a magazine led her family
into a panic.
She told Cosmopolitan,
"The only thing that's upsetting is [that] my parents and my grandparents sometimes get
confused…
At one point when I was pregnant, [the tabloids] said that I had an emergency and was rushed
to the hospital, and my face was on the cover.
The amount of stress that caused my family, nobody will understand."
Luckily, Kunis had her child without any major complications.
Although it's fair to assume that the majority of the population would love to be best friends
with Mila Kunis, she's admitted that she was never much of a social butterfly.
In her 2012 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Kunis was candid about the fact that she has
a hard time socializing with people.
She revealed that, before her marriage, men typically wouldn't ask her out on dates — and
if they did, she would find herself questioning their motives.
The same applied to platonic friendships: Kunis elaborated,
"It's hard to open up to people because often they're more curious than they actually care
about you."
Since hitting the big time, Kunis has noted that she's "paranoid" now more than ever when
it comes to meeting new people.
Though she has struggled to strike up friendships in the past, that hasn't stopped her from
forming strong bonds with fellow denizens of Tinseltown who know what it's like to be
in her shoes.
Kunis' roster of A-list pals includes — but is certainly not limited to — Zoe Saldana,
Kristen Bell, and Jennifer Lawrence.
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