Ashton Kutcher’s friendship with disgraced rapper Diddy has come under the spotlight in the wake of music mogul Sean Coombes’ arrest.
And the lurid allegations levelled at Diddy, 54, are awkward for Kutcher, 46, who has encouraged radical social change battling both malaria and the sexual exploitation of young people.
In fact, Kutcher actually launched a charity Thorn aimed at ending child sex trafficking in 2009 – the same year he co-hosted one of Diddy’s notorious White parties with the fallen Hip-Hop star.
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The Hollywood star became the chairman of Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, an organisation that works to address the sexual exploitation of kids. The That 70s Show actor has spoken many times about the cause and once claimed he saw things “nobody should see”.
In a speech in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ashton said: “I’ve been on FBI raids where I’ve seen things that no person should ever see. “I’ve seen video content of a child that’s the same age as mine being raped by an American man that was a sex tourist in Cambodia.
“And this child was so conditioned by her environment that she thought she was engaging in play. I’ve been on the other end of a phone call from my team asking for my help, because we had received a call from Homeland Security telling us that a seven-year-old girl was being sexually abused and that content was being spread around the dark web.
(Image: YouTube)
“She had been being abused and they had watched her for three years and they could not find the perpetrator. [They were] asking us for help. We were the last line of defence, an actor and his foundation were the potential last line of defence. That’s my day job and I’m sticking to it.”
In 2017, it was reported that Thorn’s software tools had reduced investigation time of these vile crimes by 60%, and the system has identified “6,000 trafficking victims, 2,000 of which are minors”.
He first formed Thorn in 2009 with his ex-wife Demi Moore under the name DNA Foundation. This was the same year Asthon was seen partying with recently arrested rapper P Diddy.
During the noughties era, Ashton was spotted regularly at Diddy’s events and even co-hosted the White Party with him in 2009.
In 2018, the pair made a joint appearance on James Corden’s The Late Late Show and cemented their bond publicly. Talking about how their friendship former, Ashton said: “We were spending a lot of time together. By the way, if you’re a single man, there’s probably no greater human being in the world than him. We were having a lot of fun together.”
This comes as Diddy had been arrested on sex trafficking charges after he was taken into custody last week. Rapper Sean Combes was hit with trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution charges but denies any wrongdoing and is set to fight the charges at a trial.
(Image: FilmMagic)
Last year, Asthon also stepped down from his anti-sex-trafficking tech company after backlash for defending his That ’70s Show co-star Danny Masterson, who was on trial for drugging and raping two women.
Masterson was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison in September 2023, after he was convicted of two counts of forcible rape during his sexual assault retrial.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
