Ashton Kutcher Kept Distance From Reese in Pics to Avoid ‘Affair’ Rumors

It seems Ashton Kutcher felt like he couldn’t win on the red carpet with Reese Witherspoon.

The actor, 45, addressed the viral snaps from the Your Place or Mine press tour, revealing wife Mila Kunis called them out too.

“My wife called me. She texted me and Reese together. She’s like, ‘Guys, you gotta, like, act like you each other.’ And I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ Here’s the thing: If I put my arm around her and was, like, all friendly with her, I’d be having an affair with her — the rumor would be that I’m having an affair with her,” Kutcher said in a clip from his upcoming Wednesday, February 8, appearance on the “Chicks in the Office” podcast. “If I stand next to her, I put my hands in my pockets so there’s no chance that, like, that could be the rumor — the rumor is we don’t like each other. Reese and I are really good friends. We’re really close. I don’t have to defend that. I don’t have to defend it.”

Kutcher and Witherspoon, 46, made waves on social media for seemingly keeping a distance at a photo call over the weekend.

“I can’t hear very well. I’m hard of hearing in one ear and I can only hear in the other,” the That ‘70s Show alum continued. “I don’t know who’s yelling my name, but I know there’s a lot of people yelling, ‘Reese! Ashton! Over here! Look at this one! Over here!’ At a certain point you’re looking you’re like, ‘God, this is really something. OK, which one? Look at the camera. Got it. OK, are we done? Awesome.’ For, like, 20 minutes.”

Kutcher concluded: “If you’re gonna tell me in that entire 20-minute period, at one point, you’re not going to have an awkward face, then you’re better than I am. And I’m cool with that.”

Witherspoon, for her part, spoke about Kunis’ reaction to the pics on Monday, February 6.

“She even emailed us last night. She goes, ‘You guys look so awkward on the red carpet together,’” the Legally Blonde star said on Today With Hoda & Jenna on Monday. “He’s so professional. He’s the funniest guy. I mean, such a goofball. We had so much fun, and every time he’d wear a funny outfit, I’d text Mila. I’d be like, ‘What is he wearing?’”

The actress referred to Kunis as a “girlfriend” who she’s “loved for so long.” Witherspoon subsequently had to “learn to be friends” with Kutcher on the set of the rom-com.

“I was like, ‘These are my dogs. These are my kids.’ My kids would tease him about his football team,” she explained.

Witherspoon shares daughter Ava, 23, and son Deacon, 19, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe and son Tennessee, 10, with husband Jim Toth. Kutcher and Kunis, meanwhile, wed in 2015 and are the parents of daughter Wyatt, 8, and son Dimitri, 6.

“Honestly, I think I had more fun shooting this movie than I ever had,” Kutcher gushed to Variety earlier this month. “It was genuinely a choice. I didn’t need to do it. I didn’t have to do it. It wasn’t like a career-building block. It was like, ‘I want to do this.’”

He went on to call Witherspoon a “genuine movie star.”

“She’s such a movie star. It was so wonderful and fun and funny and light,” Kutcher said. “There was never a dark day. There was never a day that everything went wrong. I got spoiled.”