NEWSAshton Kutcher Never Meant To Make Autoimmune Disease Public: 'Maybe It Needed To Come Out'
Jan. 31 2023, Published 12:00 p.m. ET
Last year, Ashton Kutcher shocked the world when he revealed an autoimmune disease left him unable to see or hear, but he never intended on making it public information.
It all started when he woke up with a migraine in 2019, but this one he couldn't sleep off or treat it.
Then, the actor, 44, had a hard time seeing and hearing on top of dealing with vertigo. He was eventually diagnosed with vasculitis, which involves inflammation of the blood vessels.
He couldn't do "jack s**t" for a month, but then he began to exercise.
“I’d just try to do it until I could f**king do it," the That '70s Show alum said in an interview with Esquire.
Amid the illness, he went to rehab during the pandemic but then was eager to see the world and feel alive, which is how he landed on Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge.
“It was about testing my mettle,” he said.
During the show, he disclosed the information, and though he knew cameras were around, he asked Bear Grylls not to use it. But in August 2022, when the episode aired, the star's health woes were announced.
“At the end of the day, I have to look at it and be like, ‘All right, well, maybe it needed to come out.’ Maybe somebody will see this and go, ‘Oh this is helpful for me in some way knowing this…’” he said. “Hopefully that happens.”
When asked how the dad-of-two is doing now, he replied, “I ran a f**king marathon. Are you okay? Everybody goes through s**t.”
As OK! previously reported, while chatting with the TV host, he got candid about what he has been through.
“Like two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis, that like knocked out my vision, it knocked out my hearing, it knocked out like all my equilibrium," he said at the time.
“You don’t really appreciate it, until it’s gone,” he continued. “Until you go, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to see again, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to hear again, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to walk again.'"
