January Jones hints ex Ashton Kutcher discouraged her from acting

NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- January Jones says she's happy for ex-boyfriend Ashton Kutcher despite reports of past tension.

The 38-year-old actress addressed rumors that The Ranch star wasn't supportive of her acting on Thursday's episode of Watch What Happens Live after a fan asked if she's spoken to Kutcher "since he said you couldn't act."

"I said that someone I had dated previously wasn't encouraging of my acting, not that I couldn't," Jones clarified. "I don't know if that person had ever seen me act."

"The person who wrote the [GQ] interview did the math and thought it might be him," she explained. "I never really said who it was. I haven't talked to [Ashton], but I'm super happy for him and his family. To be political and all that."

Jones, who made her film debut in the 1998 movie All the Rage, dated Kutcher from 1998 to 2001. She had said in the November 2009 issue of GQ that the person she dated when she first got to Los Angeles "was not supportive of [her] acting."

"He was like, 'I don't think you're going to be good at this,'" the star recalled. "So -- [expletive] you! He only has nice things to say now -- if anything, I should thank him. Because the minute you tell me I can't do something, that's when I'm most motivated."

The former Mad Men star has since dated singer Josh Groban and actor Jason Sudeikis, and is mom to a 5-year-old son named Xander. Kutcher, meanwhile, married Mila Kunis in 2015 and is expecting his second child with the actress.