Ashton Kutcher insists there was nothing sleazy in posting a picture of his bikini-clad wife Demi Moore on the internet - he asked her permission first.

The actor took the snap during the couple's March holiday in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where they attended the wedding of Moore's ex-husband Bruce Willis to model Emma Heming.

The image showed the Ghost star bending over while wearing a bikini - and Kutcher risked criticism by posting the picture on social networking site Twitter.com.

Captioning the photo, which was viewed by more than three million Twitter members, he wrote: "Shhh don't tell wifey" - but Kutcher insists he checked with Moore first.

He says, "Let's back off a notch. It was a bikini, not underwear, so people might have been confused. She was ironing my pants. That sounds weird, but we were on a beach and she was wearing a bikini, ironing my pants! I took a picture of her and asked her before I put it out to the world. And then I sent it really quick. It's a good butt - it's a really good butt. And people saw it. You could see that at the beach."

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(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)