Before they were competing for roles in Hollywood, actors Josh Duhamel and Ashton Kutcher were duking it out in a modeling contest.
Duhamel competed in the 1997 competition in hopes of getting exposure with a Hollywood agency, he said on the latest episode of the Not Skinny but Not Fat podcast.
“The word was that it was between this kid from Iowa, this kid from Oregon,” Duhamel told host Amanda Hirsch. “The kid from Iowa was Ashton [Kutcher].”
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Ashton Kutcher walks the Maurice Malone Fall 1998 runway; Josh Duhamel poses in 1999
“First runner-up between me and Ashton,” Duhamel recalled. “They say his name, and I swear to God, I just won Miss America. I was so excited. I felt like they lifted me up and put [on] a sash and a tiara. My god. They didn’t do this, but that’s what it felt like.”
Despite winning, it appeared at first that Kutcher had the last laugh, because “nothing happened” for Duhamel’s career in the aftermath of his victory.
“I didn’t even get an agency from it,” Duhamel admitted. “Ashton Kutcher went on, got [a] Calvin Klein campaign, got That ‘70s Show, got all these things. I was so pissed. Because I felt like, ‘But I won! I was the male model of the year!’“
Two years later, Duhamel landed his big break on All My Children, and eventually nabbed roles in Las Vegas, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the Transformers film franchise and many more.
Ultimately, Duhamel — who said he and Kutcher have since had a laugh about their early days — said that not immediately getting success from his modeling win was likely better for his career in the long run.
“It was actually a good thing probably because I had to go out and, you know, hit the streets, and really sort of bust my ass to make anything happen,” he said.
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As for his side of the story, Kutcher previously told SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show that he was initially angry about losing the competition.
“Handsome son of a bitch, that f—er. I was so f—— upset at this guy for so long,” Kutcher said of Duhamel. “And then finally I ran into him, and I was like, ‘All right, you’re good looking.'”
“I had to give it up, right?” he told Stern, before joking that “coming in second” was the “story of my life.”
Currently, Duhamel stars as rancher Staten Kirkland on new Netflix series, Ransom Canyon. Kutcher most recently starred in the Netflix romcom Your Place or Mine and appeared on the sequel series That ʼ90s Show.
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