Demi Moore has made a lot of the right moves throughout her acting career, which is why
she was one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the '80s and '90s.
But the actress sometimes left fans scratching their heads, because she's made some controversial
decisions over the years.
In 1981, when Moore was just 18 years old, she married musician Freddy Moore - that's
how she got her famous last name.
Unfortunately, their union was dubious right from the start due to the fact that Freddy
had just gone through a divorce and was also 12 years older than his new wife.
However, what the public saw was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the scandalous
situation that played out behind the scenes.
Moore admitted in her 2019 memoir, Inside Out, that she cheated on Freddy just before
their wedding.
She confessed,
"The night before we got married, instead of working on my vows, I was calling a guy
I'd met on a movie set.
I snuck out of my own bachelorette party and went to his apartment.
[...] Why did I do that?
Why didn't I go and see the man I was committing to spend the rest of my life with to express
my doubts?
Because I couldn't face the fact that I was getting married to distract myself from grieving
the death of my father.
Because I felt there was no room to question what I'd already put in motion."
Explaining the underlying motivation for her actions, she wrote,
"I couldn't get out of the marriage, but I could sabotage it."
In Moore's Inside Out memoir, she not only went public about her own private life, but
also shared details about former Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer's personal past, which
seemed to come as a surprise to him.
Moore and Cryer worked together on 1984's No Small Affair, which was when Moore claimed
she took her former co-star's virginity.
She wrote,
"I played a young nightclub singer, and Jon Cryer played the nineteen-year-old photographer
who falls in love with her, in his first movie role.
Jon fell for me in real life, too, and lost his virginity to me while we were making that
movie.
[...] [I] stole what could have been such an important and beautiful moment from him."
However, Cryer remembered things a little differently when it came to their past.
While he didn't deny that he had slept with Moore, he did take to Twitter to refute the
claim that he was a virgin at the time, saying,
"Well, the good thing about this is she doesn't have to feel bad about it anymore, because
while I'm sure she was totally justified making that assumption based on my skill level (and
the stunned look on my face at the time), I had actually lost my virginity in high school."
In 1991, Moore posed for photographer Annie Leibovitz while seven months pregnant with
her second child with then-husband Bruce Willis.
Since Moore wasn't wearing anything in the image, which ended up on the cover of Vanity
Fair, it caused quite a stir.
A writer for the Chicago Tribune, for example, was, quote, "appalled by the whole extraordinary
exhibitionist business," describing the photo as:
"[The] OB-GYN examining room [...] cover of Moore strategically cradling her amplified
elsewheres."
While the image certainly piqued the public's interest, it initially wasn't meant to be
seen by others at all.
Vanity Fair's editor Tina Brown told CNBC that she'd been looking for a fresh new cover
to help move from the '80s into the '90s, and Leibovitz had revealed to her,
"There is this other picture that I took, but I really did it for just Moore and Bruce
Willis."
That private photo made it onto the cover of the magazine and was so seemingly scandalous
that Walmart wouldn't sell it.
Despite the strong reaction - or perhaps because of it - Time magazine included it among their
list of 100 Most Influential Images of All Time.
As for Moore, she told Interview,
"I didn't realize that it would spark that degree of controversy because I don't have
that kind of thinking.
[...] Believe me, I never set out to make any big statement."
Although Moore's personal life has caused controversy over the years, her career hasn't
escaped criticism, especially since she hasn't shied away from risky roles.
That's a fact that can't be denied by anyone who's seen her 1996 film, Striptease, in which
she plays a single mother who turns to stripping.
In response to the body-baring role, Entertainment Weekly posed the question:
"Does Moore risk overexposure?
[...] The star has managed to enrage film critics.
[...] Typical was one rant by Gene Siskel, who asked: 'What's next?
Moore has a baby on camera?'"
The brutal criticism was backed up by the fact that the film and its star were given
a slew of unfortunate Razzie Award honors, including worst actress and worst picture.
Critics may not have loved the film, but Moore claimed it was a transformative experience,
telling Interview,
"I found myself in a film that has to do with the body, both the external and internal issues
of it.
And by moving through it, it changed me.
It changed my perception of me.
[...] Of my body and of my acceptance of myself."
In 1997, Moore appeared in director Ridley Scott's G.I.
Jane as the first woman to tackle the U.S. Navy Special Warfare Group training - which
was obviously an interesting pivot when it came to roles.
Unfortunately for the actress, the gig also earned her another worst actress Razzie Award,
and caused just as much critical chatter as her earlier scandal-sparking work.
Not only were fans shocked by the fact that Moore had shaved her head down to a buzzcut
to portray the hardcore character, but there was also a backlash regarding the accuracy
- or, more specifically, the supposed lack of accuracy - when it came to the nature of
the military.
Retired SEAL Tom Hawkins told The Baltimore Sun,
"If I were an instructor at [Basic Underwater Demolition SEALS], I'd be very angry with
this movie.
The way they present training is bloody way off the mark."
Moore, on the other hand, gave Interview a very different reason for the response to
her work in general, saying,
"I don't know if I personally instill a fear in people, but I think that there are things
that I have been involved in that perhaps stir up their own personal fears.
I have no control over people thinking that way, and I always feel that those kinds of
things are attempts to make me less."
The pressure for Hollywood actresses to be picture perfect is undeniably intense, which
is why Moore was once rumored to have had a knee-lift to deal with saggy skin.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote about the trend, saying,
"Telltale signs of aging competently have been eradicated (sometimes overly so) in the
marquee body parts, so science and vanity have moved on to less fetishized, subtler
but still age-betraying areas: the hands, neck and, yes, knees."
However, despite being the famous figure that brought the procedure into the news, Moore
denied that she'd had any work done in 2009.
She told Marie Claire,
"I don't like the idea of having an operation to hold up the aging process, it's a way to
combat your neurosis.
The scalpel won't make you happy.
That said, the day when I start crying when I look at myself in the mirror might be the
day when I'm less adamant about not having it done.
For the moment I prefer to be a beautiful woman of my age than try desperately to look
thirty."
Although Moore's career-related controversies had taken center stage during the '90s, she
apparently wasn't finished shocking fans when it comes to her personal life.
That became clear in 2003, when Moore began dating former That '70s Show star Ashton Kutcher,
who was 15 years her junior.
The two were married by 2005, but eventually divorced in 2013.
While the relationship was already an iffy issue for anyone who was uncomfortable with
their age difference, it also raised eyebrows because Kutcher was closer in age to Moore's
eldest daughter, Rumer Willis.
In fact, Rumer even admitted to having a crush on Kutcher before he got together with her
mother.
Things didn't seem to smooth over during the marriage either.
During that time, Moore's daughters said that they didn't recognize their mother.
In November 2019, Moore sat down with daughters Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah to have an open
and honest conversation about their past during an episode of Jada [JAY-duh] Pinkett Smith's
Facebook show Red Table Talk.
During the interview, Rumer explained that while she had never seen her mother, quote,
"not be in control around a man," Moore apparently lost herself around Kutcher.
Rumer claimed that she started asking herself,
"Who is this person?
I don't know who this is."
While sitting down for their Red Table Talk interview, Rumer opened up about the fact
that her famous mom had wanted to have a baby with Kutcher while they were married - something
that caused resentment and judgment, even within the family.
"When she wanted to have another baby and then it wasn't happening, and there was so
much focus on that, it was like, 'Oh, well we're not enough.'"
Even after Moore had gotten pregnant and endured a miscarriage at almost six months, Rumer
was still admittedly unhappy, saying,
"I think after you had a miscarriage, I literally was just like, 'Why are you so desperate to
have another kid?'
I couldn't stand the idea."
But then Rumer found photographs from when Moore had been pregnant.
In one shot that was shared on Red Table Talk, Moore could be seen showing off her bare stomach
and large baby bump.
"I saw how big her stomach was, and I was like, 'Oh my god, I was so insensitive.
I never once went to you and said, 'I'm so sorry'"
Engaging in an adventurous private life isn't necessarily scandalous, but Moore's choice
to open up about a personal situation that occurred with ex-husband Kutcher certainly
sparked plenty of heated headlines.
In her Inside Out memoir, Moore claimed that she agreed to Kutcher's request to engage
in threesomes while they were married.
Explaining that she, quote, "wanted to show him how great and fun [she] could be," Moore
admitted that it was a "mistake."
The actress also wrote that when Kutcher reportedly cheated on her with another woman in their
home, he allegedly tried to "deflect blame."
She wrote,
"Because we had brought a third party into our relationship, Ashton said, that blurred
the lines and, to some extent, justified what he'd done."
On Moore's side, she claimed the supposed infidelity made her feel "sick to [her] stomach."
While Kutcher didn't directly respond to any of the claims Moore made in her book, he did
hop onto Twitter the same day it was released to write,
"I was about to push the button on a really snarky tweet.
Then I saw my son, daughter, and wife and I deleted it."
During their 2019 Red Table Talk interview, Moore and her daughters addressed the actress'
battle with addiction.
"It was like the sun went down and like a monster came."
Tallulah admitted that when her mother wasn't sober, her behavior caused a lot of stress,
adding,
"I remember, there's just the anxiety that would come up in my body when I could sense
her eyes shutting a little bit more, the way she was speaking, or she would be a lot more
affectionate with me if she wasn't sober."
Rumer agreed, calling the experience "jarring."
Rumer also once had to call 911 during a party in 2012, when her mother had a bad reaction
to drugs which resulted in a seizure.
Moore talked about the incident during an interview with Good Morning America, saying,
"My daughter [was] terrified that she was gonna see me die right in front of her.
And within me, I was in a place that was thinking, 'Wow, how did I get in here?'"
"And I think it was a moment that I was somehow being given a choice."
Thankfully, Moore was able to pull through - the choice she made was to get sober.
She later wrote her memoir,
"[I hope by] sharing [myself] in a way, [it] can elevate or open someone else to loving
themselves a little bit better."
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