Last week, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher tried to patch up their marriage with a make-or-break holiday to Bruce Willis’ Caribbean hideaway in Turks & Caicos.
However, despite the romantic location, Demi Moore made the heart-breaking decision to end relationship with Ashton Kutcher.
The couple jetted to one of Bruce Willis’s holiday homes, where Demi Moore, 49, apparently asked for a cast-iron guarantee that Ashton Kutcher, 33, would never stray again – and was not satisfied with the answers.
The trip was the latest in several attempts to overcome their difficulties, following a spiritual’ visit to Israel, and another with a rural retreat, complete with marriage therapist.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have been seeking “spiritual guidance” over their marital problems for several months.
In the end, Demi Moore simply could not forgive the repeated and well-documented transgressions of Ashton Kutcher.
As Demi Moore indicated in a devastatingly worded statement on Thursday, Ashton Kutcher fell short of the vows and values she believed essential to marriage, and she therefore decided to end their six-year union.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, who are estimated to have a joint fortune of $290 million, are not thought to have a pre-nuptial agreement, so would be required to split their assets 50-50 under California law.
In her statement Demi Moore said she was filing for divorce with “great sadness and a heavy heart”, and added: “As a woman, a mother and a wife, there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life.”
Ashton Kutcher habitually hits the town in a big group, invariably taking along a bodyguard. When they were in a nightclub called Fluxx in San Diego in September, they were overheard debating if any of the passing women were “hot tub worthy”.
One of the girls in the tub, administrative assistant Sarah Leal, 22, claims that she and Ashton Kutcher twice had unprotected sex, but only after he had inquired after the possibility of a threesome with her and a friend.
Another woman, Megan McNutt, who was also there, described the actor as “super hot and super fun”.
She added: “If there is a hot tub there is going to be some action.”
The night in question was Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore’s sixth wedding anniversary.
Demi Moore had apparently confided to friends that she could no longer trust her husband.
Ashton Kutcher would switch off his phone for hours and she would not know where he was, or with whom. “She’s sick of feeling that she can’t trust Ashton,” said a source yesterday.
Another source added: “This has been a long time coming – heating for years and it has been soul destroying.
“They have been separate for some time, and Ashton has lately been acting as if he has wanted to be caught out. He has been hoping to provoke the end of the marriage, but she has been hanging on.”
For his part, Ashton Kutcher denied any wrongdoing, saying it was all based on assumptions. He accused the American tabloids of making up stories. It was a brazen strategy, and eventually not even his own wife believed him.
Demi Moore had already had her credulity stretched to snapping point by a previous (denied) liaison with Brittney Jones, 21, who said that Ashton Kutcher picked her up in July last year at a bowling alley and had sex with her on a sofa in his marital home in Beverly Hills days later while the actress was away.
Brittney Jones claimed that Ashton Kutcher insisted his marriage was an “open” one. She said on Thursday: “I do feel somewhat vindicated. Ashton told me that he and Demi had an open relationship and that he was not in fact cheating.”
Ashton Kutcher was also at the centre of a bizarre suggestion that he is the father of January Jones’s son, born in September.
January Jones, who plays Betty Draper in Mad Men, has never named the father, but denies it is Ashton Kutcher with whom she had a relationship from 1998 to 2001.
At the moment they met it is believed that Demi Moore banned Ashton Kutcher from even speaking about previous relationships. That period was referred to as “BD” or “Before Demi”, and she regarded his antics as unsavoury and unenlightened.
Demi Moore relaunched her career with a role in the 2004 film Charlie’s Angels, with Ashton Kutcher on her arm and a spectacular amount of beautifully executed plastic surgery, which was said to have cost nearly $1.5 million.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were married at their California home on September 24, 2005. She was 42 and he was 27.
Ashton Kutcher surprised many by forming strong and genuine bonds with his stepdaughters, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah. He said the age gap wouldn’t even be mentioned if the older party was a man, and repeatedly said it didn’t bother him.
One friend said that Ashton Kutcher appeared very attentive towards his wife, but added: “In pictures, they look good together. But in real life, there is something creepy there. She doesn’t look like his mum, but she certainly doesn’t look like his wife, either.”
The image Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore presented to the world was of blissful togetherness. Ashton Kutcher tweeted: “We leave notes all over the house for each other. She loves jelly beans, so I put some in her purse. It’s a treat.”
Demi Moore referred to herself happily as “the ultimate cougar”, and continuously posed in her bikini or her underwear, possibly to remind her husband that she was still every bit as sexy as she was when they married.
Ashton Kutcher confessed he still had a wandering eye, though.
“I love all women,” he said.
“Demi knows that. She doesn’t mind so long as I look, but don’t touch. These days I do as I’m told.”
On Thursday night Ashton Kutcher gave a regretful assessment. “Marriage is one of the most difficult things in the world and unfortunately sometimes they fail.”
