On Tuesday afternoon, Iowa-native Ashton Kutcher did something most celebrities of his stature would find unthinkable: He gave out his personal phone number on Twitter.

The number, which Kutcher claims is a direct line to him, personally, still has an Iowa area code. The number he gave out — 319-519-0576 — shows that, despite decamping for Hollywood several decades ago, he still maintains a very real connection to the eastern Iowa region where he was raised.

Born in Cedar Rapids, Kutcher spent his high school years in the town of Homestead, which had a population of 148 people, according to the 2010 census. "I miss having a real connection w/ real people," he said in the tweet asking for texts to his personal phone number.

Only hours after he'd posted his phone number, Kutcher removed the tweet and followed it up with another, stating "I will repost soon... sms is a fragile beast," implying that the number of texts he'd received had caused his messaging application or entire phone to crash.

The original tweet that was deleted reads as follows:


— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) January 29, 2019

Before the original tweet was deleted, multiple people reported receiving a message in response from Kutcher that said “hey it’s Ashton. this is an autotext to let you know I got your message, everything else will be from me. make sure you click the link and add yourself to my phone so I can respond to you."

The link is to a site for Community, which is the rebranded name of a company called Shimmer, Inc., according to Wired. Shimmer was founded in 2014 and claimed to help connect influencers and celebrities to fans. Community claims to now provide users with a "non-exclusive, revocable license to send and receive text messages from users of the Service by using a ten-digit phone number provided by Community."

This means that the phone number, due to its area code, is directly connected to eastern Iowa. However, judging by the connection to Community's app, services offered by the company and Kutcher's attempts to promote the app, it's likely that Community is providing some kind of third-party management of the "real conversations w/ real people" Kutcher claims to desire.

This isn't the first time that Kutcher has lent his celebrity to the promotion of digital products. In 2014, he founded the website A Plus, a publisher of "positive journalism"  content. The site is entirely funded by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc.

The Register has reached out to Shimmer, Inc. for further information.

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Since rising to stardom at a young age, he's returned to the state often and supported fellow Iowans with gestures both symbolic and material. Only one example among many was his visit to a school in Oskaloosa, surprising students after they raised money for his Iowa based non-profit, The Native Fund.

"I left Iowa wanting to get out of Iowa, and the older I get, the more I want to come home," Kutcher said in exclusive interview with the Register in 2017. "In part, because the more places I go, the more I realize how great it is here, and the more I realize that I almost owe everything of who I am to where I come from."

The actor's devotion to his home state extends to his phone number, or perhaps he just never got around to switching to an 805 number, the area code of Carpinteria, California, where he lives with his wife, Mila Kunis.

The actor first made a name for himself starring in the popular and long-running sitcom "That '70s Show." He then went on to star in early-aughts touchstone movies like "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Just Married." He's most recently starred in the Netflix series "The Ranch," which was recently renewed for 7th and 8th seasons.


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