Hollywood A-list couple Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have raised more than $15m (£11.3m) in the first day of their GoFundMe appeal for funds to send refugee and humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine.
Mila, 38, was born in Chernivitski, south-western Ukraine – which is out of Russia’s firing line so far – and so the appeal has a very personal angle.
The star of Black Swan and Ted said on the GoFundMe page: “Ukrainians are proud and brave people who deserve our help in their time of need. This unjust attack on Ukraine and humanity at large is devastating and the Ukrainian people need our support. Our family is starting this fund to help provide immediate support and we will be matching up to $3 million dollars.”
She was a native Russian speaker until she reached the US as a seven-year-old, her parents anxious to escape communism and despite a difficult time initially, she told the LA Times in 2008: “Ultimately, I adjusted fairly quickly and fairly well. But it must have been hard, because I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn’t understand the culture. I didn’t understand the people. I didn’t understand the language.”
In a video for the charity appeal Mila said, despite being a naturalised American, she had ‘never been more proud to be a Ukrainian’.
Her husband, Two and a Half Men star Ashton, 44, chimed in: “And I’ve never been more proud to be married to a Ukrainian”.
The couple hope to raise $30m and at the rate they’re going they will achieve that inside a week.
The money will go to Flexport.org and Airbnb.org, which are organising shipments of relief supplies to refugee sites in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova and free, short-term housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine.
The couple’s GoFundMe page is getting boosted by a lot of blue-tick holders on Twitter, such as Jennifer Beals, Mila's co-star in upcoming movie Luckiest Girl Alive, who commented: “Mila was born in the Ukraine…which explains her badass honey badger, indomitable will side.”
Reach their GoFundMe page here.
