She won the hearts of TV viewers everywhere with her breakout role as Jackie Burkhart in "That '70s Show," and ever since, Mila Kunis has become a household name. She has had a remarkable career that shows off her impressive range as an actor. But what's even more impressive is her rags-to-riches story. Indeed, when her family moved to this country, they could barely afford acting classes for the young Kunis. Still, she managed to overcome poverty to become a huge star. But things weren't easy even after she rose to fame. These are the tragic details about Mila Kunis.
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00:00A difficult transition from Ukraine to Los Angeles, a breakup that she blames on herself,
00:06a role that demanded a frightening physical transformation.
00:10Here are some tragic details about actress Mila Kunis.
00:14Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher share a comfortable life in L.A. nowadays, but she didn't always
00:20live in the lap of luxury.
00:22The future actress grew up in poverty as a first-generation immigrant, along with her
00:26parents and her older brother, Michael.
00:29Kunis was born in Ukraine, back when the country was still a territory of the Soviet
00:34Union.
00:35When she was just seven years old, she and her family fled to the United States with
00:38only $250 to their names.
00:41It was good timing, because the Soviet Union would end up collapsing later that year.
00:46Even though the Kunis family struggled financially, they always took good care of each other.
00:51When Mila showed interest in acting as a child, her parents were willing to make massive sacrifices
00:57so she could take classes.
00:58It was $890 and we had $900 in the bank account.
01:02Thankfully, the Kunis family's fortunes improved after Mila's acting career took off.
01:08Even though their daughter's net worth is estimated to be in the tens of millions today,
01:13Mark and Elvira Kunis have never accepted a single cent of her acting money.
01:18I've never been able to pay for dinner.
01:20The Kunis family, who are of Jewish heritage, left the Soviet Union after experiencing religious
01:26suppression.
01:27Although Mila was taught to hide who she was while living in Soviet Ukraine, she is
01:31still incredibly proud of her roots to this day.
01:34In 2011, she told The Daily Telegraph,
01:37"'My whole family was in the Holocaust.
01:39My grandparents passed and not many survived.
01:43After the Holocaust in Russia, you were not allowed to be religious, so my parents raised
01:47me to know I was Jewish.
01:49You know who you are inside.'"
01:51Unfortunately, Kunis wasn't able to feel safe in her own school.
01:56Because of all of the racism she and her Jewish classmates experienced, instances of
02:01anti-Semitic bullying were commonplace during her elementary education in Los Angeles.
02:06She recalled,
02:07"'One of my friends who grew up in Russia, she was in second grade.
02:11She came home one day crying.
02:13Her mother asked why, and she said on the back of her seat there was a swastika.
02:18This is a country that obviously does not want you.'"
02:21Thankfully, Kunis never let the bullies take away her pride.
02:25Amidst Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kunis and Kutcher started a GoFundMe
02:31page to raise money for Ukrainians affected by the conflict.
02:35The two have raised over $35 million so far, surpassing their original goal of $30 million.
02:41Today, Kunis considers herself a proud American, but the Family Guy star had a difficult time
02:47when she suddenly found herself immersed in American culture.
02:51"-My mom kept telling me that we're moving up the street.
02:55And then we flew to LA.
02:57My mother's a filthy liar."
02:59Kunis' first year of American school was apparently so hard for her that she can't even remember
03:04it.
03:05She told the LA Times,
03:06"'I blocked out second grade completely.
03:08I have no recollection of it.
03:10It was because I cried every day.
03:12I didn't understand the culture.
03:13I didn't understand the people.
03:15I didn't understand the language.'"
03:17Not only did Kunis not know how to speak English at that age, but she was also completely
03:22unfamiliar with American culture and customs.
03:25She told Howard Stern,
03:26"-When I came to America in 91, I was ethnic.
03:30Everything about me stood out.
03:31I didn't speak the language.
03:33I wasn't blonde and blue eyes.
03:34I didn't eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
03:37I didn't know what genes were."
03:39Kunis has admitted that she first felt embarrassed that her immigrant family didn't fit in, especially
03:43since her parents still didn't speak English when she had already learned.
03:47Luckily, she was able to adjust, and she's since come to terms with her past.
03:52Today, she tries her hardest to keep her children in touch with their Ukrainian background.
03:57Although it seems ridiculous that GQ's 2011 knockout of the year could have possibly been
04:03made fun of for her looks, it's the truth.
04:05Kunis has said she was consistently ridiculed for her physical appearance when she was growing
04:10up, often so badly that she'd come home in tears.
04:14She told OK!
04:15Magazine,
04:16"-I grew into my face.
04:17I had a very funny-looking face when I was little.
04:19I had, like, big eyes, big lips, big ears.
04:23But when I was little, I was constantly being made fun of for having big eyes, and that
04:28was awful.
04:29I used to come home crying, why do I have big eyes?
04:32And my parents were like, you're crazy."
04:34Even though Kunis was named Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire in 2012, she still finds
04:40herself feeling self-conscious about her looks sometimes.
04:44She told Yahoo,
04:45"-I am incredibly self-conscious in real life about every part of my body."
04:48Fortunately, Kunis is a firm believer that what's on the inside is much more important
04:54than what's on the outside.
04:56As she told the Los Angeles Times,
04:58"-Your looks are going to die out, and then what's going to be left?"
05:03Before her marriage to her That 70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis was in a years-long
05:08courtship with Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin.
05:12At the time of their relationship, Culkin was arguably the more well-known name, and
05:16his level of celebrity was something Kunis often had trouble grappling with.
05:21In her 2016 chat with Howard Stern, Kunis opened up about the challenges of dating someone
05:26who was getting so much abnormal attention.
05:29While some celebs love being in the spotlight, Kunis and Culkin prefer to fly under the radar
05:34as much as possible.
05:35She told Parade in 2007,
05:37"-We're incredibly private, and I think we relish the privacy we do actually have
05:42and are able to sustain it."
05:44Kunis and Culkin dated from 2002 to 2011.
05:48Things didn't end well, but she takes full responsibility for their split.
05:53She told Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast,
05:56"-I had a horrible, horrible, horrible breakup.
05:59I f----- up.
06:01I was an a----hole in my 20s, and I'll be the first to admit it.
06:05It's f----- up what I did, and it's f----- up how I did it."
06:09Mila Kunis was absolutely thrilled when she found out that she had landed a role in Darren
06:13Aronofsky's ballet drama Black Swan, but actually shooting the film was no easy feat.
06:20The movie, which follows professional ballerinas as they prepare for a production of Swan Lake,
06:24required Kunis and her co-star Natalie Portman to engage in grueling physical tasks every
06:30single day for months.
06:32Prior to the production of Black Swan, Kunis had no experience with any kind of dancing,
06:37let alone ballet.
06:38She endured a number of injuries during her training, including a torn ligament and a
06:43dislocated shoulder.
06:44Suffice to say, she was eager to hang up her leotard once and for all after filming wrapped.
06:49"-I will never dance again.
06:51I promise you, I will never put on that pointe shoe ever again."
06:56Since she had to lose 20 pounds for the role in such a short amount of time, her body hasn't
07:01been the same since production on Black Swan began.
07:04She told Harper's Bazaar,
07:05"-My shape is different.
07:07When I got down to 95 pounds, I was muscles, like a little brick house but skin and bones.
07:13When I gained it back, it went to completely different areas.
07:16All the weight that left my chest went to my side hip, my stomach."
07:20Even though the project took a toll on her body and left her with literal scars, Kunis
07:25has insisted that she doesn't regret participating in the film at all.
07:30Although Kunis is certainly grateful for the success of her acting career and all the perks
07:34that come from stardom, she has admitted that she has a hard time dealing with the press.
07:39She's been particularly put off by the tabloids that share untrue stories about her personal
07:43life.
07:44In one video uploaded to Ashton Kutcher's Instagram account in 2019, he and Kunis share
07:49a laugh over a tabloid that claimed the two of them were in the midst of a divorce.
07:54Of course, that couldn't be further from the truth.
07:56While decades in the industry have made it easy for her to laugh at the rumors and brush
08:00them aside, they cause a lot of stress for her family members who don't know the whole
08:05story.
08:06At one point during her pregnancy, a nasty rumor on the front of a magazine led her family
08:11into a panic.
08:12She told Cosmopolitan,
08:13"'The only thing that's upsetting is that my parents and my grandparents sometimes get
08:18confused.
08:19At one point when I was pregnant, the tabloids said that I had an emergency and was rushed
08:23to the hospital and my face was on the cover.
08:26The amount of stress that caused my family, nobody will understand."
08:30Luckily, Kunis had her child without any major complications.
08:34Although it's fair to assume that the majority of the population would love to be best friends
08:38with Mila Kunis, she's admitted that she was never much of a social butterfly.
08:43In her 2012 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Kunis was candid about the fact that she has
08:47a hard time socializing with people.
08:50She revealed that before her marriage, men typically wouldn't ask her out on dates, and
08:54if they did, she would find herself questioning their motives.
08:58The same applied to platonic friendships.
09:00Kunis elaborated,
09:01"'It's hard to open up to people because often they're more curious than they actually
09:06care about you.'"
09:07Since hitting the big time, Kunis has noted that she's paranoid now more than ever when
09:12it comes to meeting new people.
09:14Though she has struggled to strike up friendships in the past, that hasn't stopped her from
09:18forming strong bonds with fellow denizens of Tinseltown, who know what it's like to
09:24be in her shoes.
09:25Kunis' roster of A-list pals include, but is certainly not limited to, Zoe Saldana,
09:31Kristen Bell, and Jennifer Lawrence.