Ashton Kutcher Had a Health Scare That Changed His Life

Ashton Kutcher at The 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
Ashton Kutcher at The 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Photo by MediaPunch/REX/Shutterstock (8137814dz)

Ashton Kutcher has a new perspective on life after an experience with a rare disease. 

The Ranch star is known for making audiences laugh, but he found himself in a rather serious situation a couple of years ago. The actor contracted vasculitis—a medical disorder that destroys the body’s blood vessels through inflammation. 

“Like two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis, that like knocked out my vision,” he told Bear Grylls in the new National Geographic series, Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge. “It knocked out my hearing, it knocked out like all my equilibrium. It took me a year to build it all back up.”

The frightening encounter gave the 44-year-old actor a new lease on life.

“You don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone, 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,’” Kutcher said.

Thankfully, the father-of-two appears to have made a full recovery and is set to reprise his role of Michael Kelso in the spin-off to That ‘70s Show, titled That ’90s Show.