Mila Kunis Says Ukrainian Owner Barred Her From Childhood Home

Mila Kunis Image by Getty Images

By JTA November 10, 2017

(JTA) — The Hollywood actress Mila Kunis, her parents and husband tried to visit her childhood home in Ukraine but a local who opened the door wouldn’t let them in, she said in an interview.

Kunis, who is Jewish and in 2012 recalled experiencing anti-Semitism in her native Chernivtsi, recalled her August trip there with Ashton Kuchner in an interview published this month in the Net-a-Porter online magazine about fashion. The interview prompted angry and defensive reaction from locals, a Ukrainian news site reported.

Kunis, 34, was with her husband in Budapest, which is situated 375 miles west of Chernivtsi, for the filming of the film “The Spy Who Dumped Me” who suggested she visit Chernivtsi during the trip for the first time since she left Ukraine with her family for the United States in 1991.

“But I was never going to go without my parents. So my parents came to Budapest, then onto Ukraine, and Ashton and I went for one day. It was trippy. There’s a part of you that wants to feel something” towards the place, she said in the interview. But “I had nothing,” she added.

“We went to our [old] house and I knocked on the door because we really wanted to look inside. And [the owner] was like, ‘No!’ She did not care. I said, ‘I used to live here when I was little, my parents are here…’ She wouldn’t even open the door. The whole experience was very humbling,” Kunis said.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO