NEWSAshton Kutcher Confesses He Thought About Jumping Off A Balcony To Save Twin Brother's Life: 'Take My Heart'
Ashton Kutcher would have given up his life to save his twin brother, Michael.
In Paramount+’s latest episode of The Checkup With Dr. David Agus, the 44-year-old siblings dished on the ongoing hardships their family faced after Michael was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a very young age.
Ashton and Michael’s mother, Diane, didn’t find out she was having twins until the day they were born, and it wasn’t until three years later that she “could just tell” Michael was different from his brother.
At the age of 3, Diane began to notice "some slowness, some motor skill functionality was missing," which later lead the Kutcher family to the discovery of Michael's congenital disorder.
Despite his disability, Michael's parents continued to raise him as if he was capable of anything.
"My parents had the whole philosophy that Mike's going to be able to do anything that his brother can do and they challenged me," the motivational keynote speaker explained in an interview during the docuseries. "Growing up, [Ashton] challenged me as well."
"You kind of only know what’s in front of you. Nobody in our family, nobody in our world was ever pointing out a difference. It just kind of felt like, there's things that he’s good at and there's things that I’m good at," Ashton added, noting he would always defend his twin as they grew up in a world full of bullies.
Although they shared a special bond, the dynamic duo still developed a classic sibling relationship — which, of course, involved the occasional brotherly brawl.
"He's my brother. If I'm playing, he's playing," the That '70s Show actor explained. "... We shared clothes. We would beat each other up and wrestle. We'd jump off of the porch railing and pile drive each other. We fought like crazy."
Things quickly took a turn when the pair was in eight grade and Michael developed a flu-like illness, prompting him to go to a hospital where he was given three to four weeks to live without a heart transplant. The doctor's prediction was later cut down to an intense 48 hours after Michael crashed and was only surviving with the help of an ECMO machine.
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"Imagine being a parent and you have two kids, twins, and one has a life-threatening disorder," Dr. Agus expressed to a news publication in an interview published Tuesday, December 6. "What do you tell the other? These are young kids. How do you deal with that?"
Ashton recalled the terrifying hours leading up to the day he thought he lost his brother for good.
"I was at my friend's house, suddenly my dad picks me up and is like, 'You’re going to go see your brother.' In hindsight you realize, they want me to see him because they don't know where this is going," the Two and a Half Men star tearfully stated in the episode. "I go in the room and I'm like, 'Whoa! Everything’s not OK.' He flatlines in the room... They’re grabbing me and they take me out."
It was in that moment Ashton decided he would do anything in the world if it meant saving his twin's life.
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"I'm thinking to myself, 'If anyone's a match, I'm a match,'" the award-winning-actor discussed. "Now you start running that cycle through your head. You're like, 'This balcony looks far enough to take things.'"
During a tough "realization that this could be the end," the father-of-two offered to donate his organs to his brother, Dr. Agus continued to dish in his interview.
"Ashton went to his parents and said, 'Take my heart.' He said it truthfully. He really wanted to give it to his brother," the famed physician continued. "...The person he loved most in the world, his brother, [was] going through this and he wasn't able to... just push [Michael] along. He had helped his brother with cerebral palsy and some social issues at school, but now here's an issue that he can't fix."
Both brothers were miraculously saved when Michael found a match and received a heart transplant within just 24 hours, which Dr. Agus deemed as unlikely as "winning the lottery."
The series of life-and-death situations caused Ashton to have a serious awakening.
"I think standing on the balcony going, 'I'm a match,' that moment is probably the exact moment the shift took place," the Jobs star admitted. "Where I'm like, 'How do I get to be this lucky? And my brother to be born with cerebral palsy, then have a heart transplant, then have this random blood clot... Who has to go through that? How do I get to be this lucky?'"
Except a few years later, Michael demanded Ashton tweak his viewpoint.
"There was a moment in all of this where I moved to New York and was starting to get some traction with my career and Mike came out to visit and stay and he looked at me and he said, 'Every time you feel sorry for me, you make me less. This is the only life I’ve ever known, so stop feeling sorry for the only thing I have,'" the Butterfly Effect actor concluded. "That then created an entire shift back to where I think we are today, which is we're straight up equals again. That’s it."
Dr. Agus spoke to Entertainment Tonight about the Kutcher brothers' upbringing.
