HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — From the public's view, Demi Moore's transition from Bruce Willis to new hubby Ashton Kutcher would appear as good as it gets for a family dealing with change, but the actress says it wasn't so simple.
"It wasn't a piece of cake," Moore admits in the Spring 2008 issue of V Magazine. "It wasn't automatic or easy. It took diligence and effort and even enduring awkwardness, and a lot of general giving on my part and Bruce's part. And really, tremendously, on Ashton's part.
"Coming into my life, Ashton just wasn't meeting somebody that had baggage," she adds. "You know, I had trunks!"
Adding to the challenge for Kutcher has been the overwelming amount of female power in the household.
"We're loaded with females," the 45-year-old Moore says. "Recently we added a male puppy to our family mix. We had all female dogs before that."
"Thank goodness I have a male assistant — otherwise Ashton would have gone from being a single guy with a male roommate to being overloaded," she adds.
Despite the abundance of girl power, Moore says that the 29-year-old Kutcher has handled everything like a pro.
"I definitely can't answer for him, but I think it certainly wasn't a difficult transition," she says. "Ashton's relationship with his own mother is really wonderful, so it made the transition to being with a woman with daughters something he didn't bat an eye at. It also says a lot about the confidence that he holds within himself as an individual."
Moore, who married Kutcher in 2005, has three well-known daughters from her marriage to Willis — 19-year-old Rumer, 16-year-old Scout and 13-year-old Talulah. Much of the family's time has been spent at their secluded Idaho home over the years, but her daughters are stepping out in Hollywood more often now, which the "Striptease" actress says is "a little bit scary."
"It's hard to say no to curious teenagers when exciting events or things are happening," Moore says. "You can't live in a bubble. A key thing, and I've said this before, is to try to help your children be good decision makers."
"I'm grateful for the grounding that being away from [Hollywood] gave them," Moore adds. "I'm still learning, too. Can I say that I'll look back and everything was the right choice? I'm sure I won't. But that's part of understanding that none of us are perfect, and I've never been exactly in the place that I am right now."
With age comes wisdom, and Moore says she knows a thing or two about aging and surviving in an industry that isn't always so kind to the old folks.
"It's important not to get yourself obsessed, because it's a game you're going to lose," she explains. "When people get too obsessed we start to see these faces that don't move and are so manipulated that there's no life to them anymore. One of the most important things about anti-aging is really in your thinking, it's what you believe.
"If you think you're old, feel that you're done growing, then you're going to have a stale life force around you. I've always enjoyed being childlike and placed an importance on being silly and playing and remembering not to take myself too seriously, because I certainly have in the past."
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