Celebrity Mound

Ashton Kutcher has shut down his Twitter.com account after sparking outrage by defending ousted college football coach Joe Paterno.

Paterno was fired from his role as head coach of the Pennsylvania State University football team on Wednesday amid the growing sex abuse scandal surrounding his former assistant Jerry Sandusky.

Paterno has come under fire for failing to take more action against Sandusky, who has been charged with molesting eight boys over a 15-year period.

Kutcher took to his Twitter page to question the board of trustees’ decision to fire Paterno, writing, “How do you fire Jo Pa? insult. no class. as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”

His comment prompted a flurry of angry messages from offended followers, with several criticizing Kutcher for his response in light of the charity he co-founded to end child sex slavery.

The Two and a Half Men star quickly deleted the post and closed his page, admitting he felt “awful” about his comment.

He tweeted, “As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case.

“As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won’t happen again.”

Ashton Kutcher sure knows how to celebrate his anniversary.

To ring in six years of marriage with wife Demi Moore, 48, the 33-year-old “Two and a Half Men” star spent the evening of Sept. 24 trolling San Diego nightclubs before slipping into a hot tub with two young women back at his hotel room, according to the new issue of Us Weekly.

After cruising through the Fluxx nightclub with “That ’70s Show” co-star Danny Masterson and his brother Chris, Kutcher was overheard by one spy saying none of the women at the club were “hot-tub worthy.”

Ladies worth his Jacuzzi weren’t too far off, though.

According to the magazine, Kutcher met local woman Sara Leal and a friend of hers back at his $2,500-per-night, 1,200-square-foot suite at the Hard Rock Hotel.

“Ashton told them he was separated from Demi,” a source said. Soon enough, the three were getting to know one another.

“Within five minutes, they were all naked in the hot tub, making out,” another source told the magazine.

Moore was spending the evening promoting “5,” a series of short films about the effects of breast cancer.

Speculation has swirled around the couple, considering that in recent weeks both have posted cryptic messages to their Twitter accounts, Moore at one point stopped following her husband on the site and then started back up and the actress has been noticed looking markedly gaunt.

The pair was spotted Friday entering a Los Angeles-area Kabbalah center together, but still a friend of Moore’s told the magazine that the actress was “struggling. She’s been alone a lot lately.”

Ashton Kutcher will play “an Internet billionaire with a broken heart” when he arrives as the new star of “Two and a Half Men” next month.

CBS Entertainment Nina Tassler shared this tidbit about the much-anticipated cast change for TV’s biggest sitcom during a session with television reporters on Wednesday. Kutcher, of course, will fill the void left by Charlie Sheen, who made a stormy exit from “Men” last season.

Kutcher’s character will be named Walden Schmidt, confided the CBS boss, who added that Schmidt has no family connection to the characters played by continuing stars Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. They portrayed the brother and nephew of Sheen’s departed character.

Tassler would not confirm or deny reports that the new season of “Men” begins with the death of Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, and a funeral.

“The mystery is part of the marketing,” she said.

“Men” begins its ninth season on Sept. 19 with the first of a two-part kickoff that establishes Kutcher’s character.

Predictably, Tassler voiced excitement about the show’s new star.

Kutcher, she said, “is an extraordinarily professional, talented, funny, gifted actor who comes with a tremendous amount of commitment and enthusiasm.”

“The show will be as irreverent as it has ever been,” she promised. “Our Program Practices people are already on high alert.”

Even so, Kutcher and his “Men” co-stars were conspicuously absent from Wednesday’s sessions of the Television Critics Association, which was visited by cast members from several of CBS’ new fall shows as well as from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” the veteran crime drama that is welcoming Ted Danson to the fold for its upcoming 12th season.

Asked why the “Men” gang wasn’t on hand, Tassler replied that the show is in production. It resumed shooting Monday, and a break for a meeting across town with reporters would have been too disruptive, she explained.

“There is a tremendous amount of energy and focus and attention,” Tassler said. “I would be lying if I didn’t say when everybody walked on that set on Monday, you could cut the air with a knife.”

Kutcher’s first week on the job begins a new chapter for “Men” after a tumultuous conclusion to Sheen’s eight-season run as a fast-living, womanizing cad. Sheen’s portrayal drew inspiration from his own life of sex sprees, serial marriages and substance abuse, which spiraled into clashes with the show’s studio as well as its creator, Chuck Lorre, and CBS. He was fired in March and the season was shuttered early.

Tassler was asked what she had learned from that experience.

“Oh, where do I begin?” she replied with mock weariness, but hastily insisted she preferred to look forward, not behind.

Then, when asked if, in the future, CBS might introduce new policies for casting actors who are known for erratic behavior, she cracked, “That would probably be every actor in the business.”