Christina Ricci Has an Important Reminder Following Danny Masterson’s Sentencing

Christina Ricci had an important reminder about the nature of abuse following Danny Masterson’s highly publicized case. Ricci shared her thoughts on her Instagram Stories after the former “That ’70s Show” actor was convicted on two counts of forcible rape and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. Without explicitly mentioning Masterson, she shared that even people we once “loved and admired” can cause serious harm. “They might not do these things to us, and we only know who they were to us, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do horrible things and to discredit the abused is a crime,” she wrote on Sept. 10, per Entertainment Tonight.

“People we know as ‘awesome guys’ can be predators and abusers.”

“People we know as ‘awesome guys’ can be predators and abusers. It’s tough to accept but we have to,” she continued. This point seemed especially poignant given that Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher recently received backlash for writing court letters in support of their former costar. “Couple months ago, Danny’s family reached out to us and they asked us to write character letters to represent the person that we knew for 25 years,” Kutcher explained in an apology video posted on Sept. 9. But as Ricci pointed out — regardless of their past — seemingly great people are still capable of bad things. Reps for Kunis and Kutcher did not immediately respond to POPSUGAR’s request for comment.

“If we say we support victims — women, children, men, boys — then we must be able to take this stance,” she said. “Unfortunately I’ve known lots of ‘awesome guys’ who were lovely to me who have been proven to be abusers privately,” adding that she’s experienced this firsthand. Having a close personal relationship with someone does not mean they’re incapable of abuse, but describing Masterson as a “role model” to a judge, as Kutcher and Kunis did in their letters, can discredit the survivors who bravely came forward. “Believe victims,” Ricci wrote. “It’s not easy to come forward. It’s not easy to get a conviction.”