It’s 2026, and genre lines are more blurred than ever. Former rappers Jelly Roll and Post Malone are now touring together, and pop diva Beyoncé won Best Country Album at last year’s Grammy Awards for Cowboy Carter. Even Lana Del Rey, the poster child for dark glam, has said she will release her own album of country covers any day now. Now actor Ashton Kutcher has entered the chat, recently revealing a longtime obsession with writing a country album.
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Ashton Kutcher Doesn’t Care If You Stream His Country Album
Ashton Kutcher got his start playing lovable doofus Michael Kelso on That ’70s Show, a long-running Fox sitcom about a group of teenage friends navigating high school in the Carter era. From 2003 to 2007, he also hosted Punk’d, the hidden-camera practical-joke reality show that became ubiquitous in early-aughts pop culture.
Kutcher’s latest project is the forthcoming FX sci-horror series The Beauty, created by Ryan Murphy of American Horror Story fame. While promoting the show recently, the 15-time Teen Choice Award winner revealed a surprising passion.
“I don’t know if this is healthy or not. It might not be healthy. I decided I’m going to write a country music album,” he said.
The Ranch star admitted that his passion for the genre far outstrips his own vocal talent. However, he’s not letting that deter him—although he is maintaining realistic expectations.
“I’m going to do it anyway just because I want to write an album. I don’t care if anybody listens to it—and they probably won’t, and I’m okay with that—but I’ve just always wanted to write a country music album,” Kutcher continued. “So I’m obsessed with getting that done.”
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Why It’s Not All That Surprising
Believe it or not, this album won’t be Ashton Kutcher’s first brush with Nashville. The actor has previously joined country musician—and good friend—Thomas Rhett onstage, most recently for a rollicking rendition of Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” with country star HARDY during Rhett’s 2022 Stagecoach set.
In fact, the Stagecoach Festival is what brought the two together in the first place. “I remember him and his wife Mila Kunis, which is crazy, invited me and [wife] Lauren to dinner one night in L.A.,” recalled the “It Goes Like This” crooner, 35. “And we’re sitting there going, ‘Are we seriously about to go to dinner with them?’ Like, this is nuts and just one of those things where before we walked in, we’re like crossing our fingers—like, ‘Please be as cool as we think you are.’ And we walked in and just immediately hit it off and we’ve gotten to become decently close with them.”
Maybe keep an eye out for an Ashton Kutcher-Thomas Rhett collab in the future.
Featured image by Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
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