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Macaulay Culkin: ‘No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin a month’

The Home Alone star talks about the drug rumours, dodging paparazzi and his cheese-flavoured Velvet Underground tribute act

O f all modern myths, it is the fall of the child star that most compels us. Whether they’re embarking on 55-hour marriages, throwing bongs out of windows or abandoning monkeys at customs , we can’t seem to get enough. There’s something pathological in our need to tear down our icons of innocence, which might explain the overprotective nature of Macaulay Culkin’s US publicist, who wants to see all my questions upfront. I refuse. I thought we could just ... have a chat? The interview, Culkin’s biggest in 10 years, is supposed to focus on his comeback. I’m instructed to avoid anything negative. I ask if I can ask if he has any regrets. “Regrets sounds too negative,” is the response.

When we meet, in the lobby of a hotel in Spain, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly this comeback consists of. Culkin’s filming an advert for Compare the Market, which is obviously not a passion project. “It was fun, and we hammered that sucker out pretty quickly. The biggest scene was me sitting on a bench eating ice-cream.”

Is he doing this to fund an exciting new venture? “No, not necessarily.” He’s dressed grungily, long hair man-bunned back, boots open-laced, blazer badge-studded. He doesn’t project the focused careerism of most actors. “People feel they have to be in perpetual motion, or drown. I’ve never had a problem saying I’ve got nothing lined up. Maybe I’ll take the next year off.” It sounds as if he’s not particularly drawn to acting at all. “I’m not much active,” he concedes. “If I knew what I wanted to do, I’d be writing it myself.”

The trajectory of Culkin’s life feels like fallout from an atomic blast. By the age of 12, Uncle Buck, two Home Alone films , My Girl and (to a lesser extent) Richie Rich had made him the most successful child actor of all time. At 14, he became legally emancipated from his parents; both had been trying to gain control of his $17m fortune in their divorce. Culkin married at 17, and separated two years later. Sleepovers with Michael Jackson became public knowledge when he was called as a defence witness at the singer’s molestation trial . I’m ghoulishly fascinated by this alien childhood. I’d like to ask about Michael Jackson.

“I think it’s best you don’t,” interjects his manager. She is one of three people sitting with us. “It’s not that it’s a painful topic ...” begins Culkin. His manager insists we move on, the PR next to her agrees. Culkin clearly wants to say something, but six eyes are telling him not to.

I suspect we’re both wondering why we’re here; 35-year-old Culkin doesn’t do this sort of thing any more, having turned his back on the spotlight. “I don’t just turn my back, I actively don’t want it. The paps go after me because I don’t whore myself out.” He has spent a decade turning down interviews, and mostly lives in France, where the aloof Parisians leave him alone. (It’s also where Kevin McCallister’s family were headed when they left him Home Alone, but we can’t talk about that.) I get the impression he’s as eager to talk about a price comparison website as I am to ask about one. Instead, I ask why people are still fascinated by him.

“I have no idea. I was thinking about this the other day – I’d crossed the wrong street, picked up a tail, suddenly there’s a crush of 20 paparazzi. Then people with cameraphones get involved. I don’t think I’m worthy of that.”

Has it got better with time?

“It’s been like that my whole adult life. You take on a prey-like attitude, always scanning the horizon. It’s strange on dates, as it looks like you’re not paying attention. But I’ve stopped trying to think of myself in the third person, because that’s just gonna drive me nuts.”

You had to think about yourself in the third person?

“Exactly. Macaulay Culkin is out there, and I’m Mac. You guys can play with the first one.”

He’s not averse to a bit of playing himself, for Culkin is the celebrity’s meta-celebrity. You may remember the meme-meltdown a few years back when Ryan Gosling was pictured wearing a T-shirt of Kevin McCallister. Culkin responded by creating a T-shirt that pictured Gosling wearing the shirt, before Gosling responded in kind, being photographed wearing a T-shirt of Culkin wearing a T-shirt of Gosling wearing a T-shirt of Culkin. They may still be at it for all we know.

Culkin’s previous ads, for the likes of Orange (and, in a Partridge move, the rebranding of Norwich Union), trade in close-to-the-bone self-analysis. For Compare the Market, he plays a hitchhiker picked up by the lovable meerkats, who see him as a child, buying him ice-cream and making him ride merry-go-rounds he’s too big for.

In 2006, Culkin wrote an experimental novel, Junior, from the perspective of a certifiable child star with father issues. In web comedy :DRYVRS , he’s a blood-spattered sadist, unhinged by the childhood trauma of parental abandonment, and defending himself against home invaders. Is all this self-quoting what he’s drawn to, or just what he gets offered? “A bit of both. It suits my personality and sense of humour. But I would be game for something non-self-referential.”

Given this dilemma – constantly returning to a past he wants distance from – where does his sense of self come from? “From me. I try to figure out what makes me happy – and not in a superficial way. I keep my soul fit.” Is he spiritual? “I know enough to know I don’t know. I was raised Catholic, so there’s a lot of guilt. We’re born with original sin.” He veers off into a joke. “Since I was told that, I’ve been trying to come up with even more original sins, that’ll really blow my priest away at confession. Like, here’s one you haven’t heard – it involves a pitching wedge, a donkey and a bucket of ice.” And two meerkats? “Yeah! You might wanna record this one!”

He reflects. “Actually, I’m very much at peace lately. I can debate with people, and my heart rate never changes.” And Culkin is witty and affable. Funny, but distant. He offers confrontational figures of speech amiably. “If you want to get into an argument with an artist, ask them what art is,” he says. “If you want to make an actor feel uncomfortable, ask them what they’re doing next.” (I hastily scribble out one of the few questions I’ve written down.)

Are his debates political? “I have leanings, but I’m the definition of a disenfranchised voter – I think the system is ugly. This whole Trump thing is amazing.” (Trump cameos in Home Alone 2, showing our hero the way to the Plaza Hotel lobby, although we can’t talk about it.) Culkin doesn’t want to be drawn further. “Discussing politics is the quickest way to alienate people, so I don’t wanna go into it.” And Trump has enough column inches? “Exactly! He’s like the Candyman, we have to stop saying his name.”

Culkin was acting at four, an age at which no one knows what they want beyond watching cartoons and eating oversugared cereal. Having described himself as “effectively retired”, he works occasionally (voices for Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, cameoing as himself in Zoolander 2), but: “I’m much more proactive with visual arts and writing, my notebook and little projects.” Of the projects that reach the public, most could charitably be classed as divisive. There are paintings: one of the cast of Seinfeld on the set of Wheel of Fortune, being painted, nude, by He-Man. There’s The Wrong Ferrari, a Dadaist knockabout written on ketamine with Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches, shot entirely on iPhones. Most notorious is the Pizza Underground , his Velvet Underground tribute act that replaces the original lyrics with pizza puns (I’m Waiting for Delivery Man, Take a Bite of the Wild Slice). At Nottingham Rock City, the band were pelted with beer and booed off stage as he played a kazoo solo. They cancelled their European dates, citing a “cheesemergency” . My question about all this is: what the hell?

“It’s one of those good ideas you have when you’re drunk, and you wake up and forget about it. But we’re taking it to the end of the joke. We have an album coming out, a vinyl pressing with a children’s choir, a symphony orchestra. We’re giving it away, our gift to the world.” Does he still find it funny? “Of course I find it funny! We rhyme mushrooms with mushrooms, come on. It’s the same joke, relentlessly. Like, they’re really doing this?”

Culkin enjoys the absurdity his fame bestows. But scrutiny has its downside. In New York, he takes walks at 4am to avoid harassment. On YouTube, one can find clips of him being harassed by wannabe-paps with smartphones. In 2012, photographs of him looking gaunt, almost transparent, set tabloids aflame with stories he was addicted to heroin and oxycodone, following the breakdown of his relationship with Mila Kunis. Given his friendship with Adam Green and Pete Doherty – as well as a previous arrest for possession of marijuana, Xanax and clonazepam – it seemed plausible.

Were people right to be worried? “Not necessarily. Of course, when silly stuff is going on – but no, I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever. The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern. No, you’re trying to shift papers.” Is there a story there he might want to tell one day, on his own terms? “Perhaps.”

Whatever his recreational habits, I’m surprised by how unscrewed-up Macaulay Culkin is. Plans for the summer mainly involve roadying for Har Mar Superstar and Green (with whom he has another lo-fi film out, Aladdin ). “Home is where my boots are. I’m a big fan of jumping on people’s tourbuses, making myself useful, doing load-ins and outs. I do everything except the merch table. I tried that, but ... we didn’t sell anything.”

He has directionless days. He sleeps in, stays up late, indulges immature humour, bounces around with bad-influence friends. In short, he’s enjoying the adolescence that celebrity stole from him. Ironically, his personal problems and turbulent relationship with the media have also given him a pretty grown-up perspective. Not a bad epilogue for a child star.

“It’s allowed me to become the person I am, and I like me, so I wouldn’t change a thing. Not having to do anything for my dinner, financially, lets me treat every gig like it’s the last.” He laughs, and this time addresses himself in the second person. “If it is, I’d think: Culkin, you had a good run.”

• The G2 interview

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Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Culkin is an actor known mostly for his childhood roles in such films as 'My Girl' and 'Home Alone.'

Who Is Macaulay Culkin?

Although Macaulay Culkin made his feature screen debut in 1988's Rocket Gibraltar , it was his role in 1989's comedic hit Uncle Buck that made him Hollywood's favorite child actor. His stardom hit meteoric proportions the following year when he starred in the wildly successful slapstick comedy Home Alone . After 1991's My Girl , Culkin's star status faded, although he continues to act.

Macaulay Carson Culkin was born on August 26, 1980, in New York City. The third of seven children, Culkin was drawn to the limelight from a young age. He performed in his first play Off-Broadway at age four. Culkin studied the performing arts extensively as a child, including training at Balanchine's School of the American Ballet, and appeared in numerous television commercials.

Child Actor, 'Home Alone' Superstardom

In 1991, Macaulay Culkin impressed audiences and critics with his heartfelt and endearing performance as the best friend of a troubled young girl in the tear-jerker My Girl . Subsequent films, including 1993's The Good Son and 1994's Richie Rich were underwhelming and emphasized Culkin's waning popularity.

Throughout his career, Culkin's father, Kit, was his manager. In the early 1990s, rumors began to surface that accused Kit of mismanagement. In 1995, Culkin's parents began a custody battle over their children and Macaulay's fortune. His mother eventually won custody.

Later Films, Friendship With Michael Jackson

In 2003, after a relatively long absence from the public eye, Culkin starred in Party Monster , a true story about the rise and fall of a club promoter. Other films include 2004's Saved! and 2007's Sex and Breakfast .

In September 2004, Culkin was arrested in Oklahoma for possession of 17.3 grams of marijuana and two other controlled substances for which he had no prescription. He was given a one-year deferred sentence on each charge and assessed $540 in court costs.

In 2005, Culkin defended Michael Jackson at the pop star's molestation trial. He called the allegations against Jackson "absolutely ridiculous." Culkin met Jackson in the early 1990s, after he had reached stardom with Home Alone and spent time at the Neverland Ranch. He also starred in Jackson's "Black or White" music video. The stars became such good friends that Culkin is godfather to Jackson's eldest two children Prince Michael Jr. and Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson .

The Pizza Underground

In 2013, Culkin debuted his comedy rock band The Pizza Underground, which parodied songs by The Velvet Underground using pizza-themed lyrics and song titles. In 2016, he announced that the band had dissolved.

Personal Life

Culkin married actress Rachel Miner in 1998 when he was 18. The couple separated in 2000.

Culkin began dating actress Mila Kunis in 2002. After quietly dating for more than eight years, Kunis and Culkin announced their split in early 2011. Culkin currently dating former Disney actress Brenda Song, whom he met while filming the 2018 movie Changeland, directed by Seth Green. The pair welcomed son Dakota Song Culkin in April 2021.

While appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in August 2018, Culkin revealed that he had turned down the opportunity to star in the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory as the show was being created. "I'd have hundreds of millions of dollars right now if I did that gig," said, adding, "At the same time, I'd be bashing my head against the wall."

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Macaulay Culkin
• Birth Year: 1980
• Birth date: August 26, 1980
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: New York
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Macaulay Culkin is an actor known mostly for his childhood roles in such films as 'My Girl' and 'Home Alone.'
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• School of American Ballet

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Macaulay Culkin Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/macaulay-culkin
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 12, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Macaulay Culkin's Tragic True Life Story

The "child actor to trainwreck" pipeline is a well-worn Hollywood trope, yet few stories capture the turbulent nature of child stardom as intensely as the true-life story of Macaulay Culkin . Rising to prominence in the '90s with his breakout role as Kevin McCallister in "Home Alone," this child prodigy found himself placed on a pedestal seemingly overnight for his rare talent and innocence. However, behind the scenes, Culkin was forced to grow up quickly, echoing the familiar tale of many young stars who navigated the perils of premature fame before him.

Despite his undeniable talent and grounded demeanor, not even Culkin could evade the tragedy of being thrust into the limelight too early in life. From a media frenzy fueled by rumors of substance abuse to battles with personal demons, Macaulay Culkin's tragic true-life story is a complex testament to his unwavering resilience and staying power within the cultural zeitgeist.

His family struggled financially growing up

Before Macaulay Culkin achieved immense success as a top-earning child actor, the Culkin family lived a much different lifestyle. Working as a telephone operator and a sacristan for a Catholic church, respectively, Macaulay's parents, Patricia Brentrup and Kit Culkin, raised their seven children in an apartment "barely suitable for a couple" on 94th Street and Second Avenue, as Macaulay's younger brother Kieran Culkin referred to it in Vanity Fair . Most of the kids shared bunk beds in one bedroom, while the only door in the railroad-style apartment was attached to the bathroom. "I guess we couldn't afford doors or something," Macaulay joked in New York magazine .

Once a young Macaulay, who hadn't even hit double digits yet, became the family breadwinner, their family dynamics got complicated. Despite Macaulay's substantial earnings from movies, the family didn't immediately alter their lifestyle. Macaulay suggested to New York magazine that this was a way for his father to maintain control. "I was making God-knows-how-much money, and Kit was making me sleep on the couch, just because he could," Macaulay said. "Just to let you know who's in charge and just to let you know if he doesn't want you to sleep in a bed, you're not going to sleep in a bed." They continued living in the same apartment for two more years. Even after moving into a larger place, Macaulay described the adjustment as challenging.

A troubled relationship with his father

Macaulay Culkin's difficulties with his father, Kit Culkin, didn't end with nights sleeping on the couch. By the time his never-married parents separated and underwent a very public custody battle in court, the whole world was aware of how Macaulay viewed his father. "The one thing he taught me," he told New York magazine, "was how not to be, and how I don't want to be with my children. He was a bad guy."

As a former child actor, Kit urged all his children to pursue acting. Among them, Macaulay emerged as the most successful and quickly rose to fame. However, Kit gained a reputation in the industry as an aggressive, difficult manager, leading Macaulay to realize that his career was no longer entirely under his control. "I just remember the exact point when I was growing a little more tired," he told New York magazine, recalling that he asked Kit for some time off. "The next thing I knew I was on the next set doing the next thing, and it just kind of clicked in my brain: 'Okay. There's basically nothing I can do to make this stop.'"

Macaulay and Kieran Culkin have continued to speak out about their father's alleged mistreatment and abuse. In 2018, Macaulay suggested on the  "WTF" podcast that his father's behavior stemmed from jealousy because "everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old." The two brothers haven't been in contact with Kit in years.

He took his parents to court

It was during his parents' custody battle when Macaulay Culkin learned for the first time how much he was truly worth — reportedly between $15 million and $20 million. In order to protect his finances and prevent further drama, Culkin chose to take both his parent's names off his trust fund and appoint an executor. To this day, Culkin is uncertain where he falls on the discussion of parents earning money off their children. "That's something for future generations of child actors to figure out, whether parents should be creating that dynamic," he told New York magazine.

However, something that has bothered Culkin is how the tabloids represented the situation. "It's always misconstrued, that I 'emancipated' myself from my parents," he told Esquire . "I just thought I was doing it cleanly — taking my father's name off, taking my mom's name off, so my opinion is unbiased." Although Culkin hasn't had contact with his father since the final court date in 1997, he remains close with his mother, who has since remarried and relocated to Montana. Ultimately, his decision proved wise, as Culkin stands out as one of the rare child actors who have successfully retained control over their financial affairs.

He experienced the pitfalls of being a child actor

Macaulay Culkin may have avoided being taken advantage of financially, but the fame that came with child acting presented many pitfalls that left him feeling overwhelmed and isolated. "It was probably when I was nine and everything was happening," Culkin told The Guardian . "One day you are an average kid walking down the street and the next this kid is peering in your window trying to get a glimpse of you. That was too much for me to handle." 

"Home Alone," of course, changed everything for Culkin. Overnight, he was launched into a stardom no child could ever be prepared for. The leap was sudden — Culkin went from reportedly making $100,000 for "Home Alone" to $1 million for "My Girl" and $8 million for "Home Alone 2" and "Richie Rich."

It was all fine at first. Culkin told Esquire that he genuinely enjoyed acting during his early movies. "I was a bit of an attention whore. 'Hey, I'm a kid, look at me!'" he said. "I enjoyed it because I was good at it and I knew it." Then the harassment from paparazzi and the public escalated. "It was one of those paranoias like, 'There are people in the bushes! There are people in the bushes!' But there really are people in the bushes. It was that kind of thing," he told New York magazine. With all these negative feelings toward acting building up, Culkin eventually decided to leave it all behind.

He retired early from acting

Although Macaulay Culkin's retirement from acting came early, it had been a long time coming. Even after a string of critical misses, including "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," "The Good Son," and "Getting Even With Dad," Culkin had every opportunity to continue down this career path. Instead, he chose to retire in 1994 following "Richie Rich," in an attempt to lead a normal life. He succeeded as much as any famous millionaire teenager could. He attended the Professional Children's School and got up to typical shenanigans with friends. "I never did anything more than any upper-class Upper West Side kid you know would. We weren't, like, all squatting in the corner shooting heroin," he told New York magazine.

Culkin eventually dropped out of school his senior year and returned to acting in 2000 with a role in the play "Madame Melville." "It took me about six years to figure out you can't back out of this," he told Time . From then on, Culkin took on jobs here and there, starring in 2003's "Party Monster" and doing voice-over appearances in Seth Green's "Robot Chicken." In 2006, he ventured into literature by publishing the experimental and semi-autobiographical novel "Junior," which delved into Culkin's experiences with fame and his complex relationship with his father. Following a period of diverse endeavors, Culkin experienced a resurgence in his acting career, earning critical acclaim for his role in "American Horror Story: Double Feature" in 2021.

His friendship with Michael Jackson sparked controversy

One of the only things that brought Macaulay Culkin true comfort during the height of his fame was his friendship with fellow celebrity Michael Jackson. The two became close after Culkin starred in the singer's music video for "Black or White." Despite an age difference of more than 20 years, their shared experiences of unique childhoods fostered a connection. "It's not like I can just bump into people on the street and say, 'Oh! You too!' It doesn't happen that often," Culkin told New York magazine. "Michael's still a kid. I'm still a kid. We're both going to be about eight years old forever in some place because we never had a chance to be eight when we actually were."

Amidst allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson, Macaulay staunchly defended him, testifying in the 2005 court case where Jackson was ultimately acquitted. Culkin clarified his position to Esquire, stating firmly, "He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything." Their last encounter was at the trial, a restroom run-in during a recess. Although he avoids discussing it whenever possible, Culkin remains steadfast in his support of Jackson — who passed away in 2009 — and serves as the godfather to Jackson's son, Prince Michael, and daughter, Paris.

Loss in the family

Macaulay Culkin has faced profound moments of loss throughout his life. Prior to the passing of his close friend Michael Jackson in 2009, Culkin had already experienced the loss of two beloved siblings. The first was his half-sister Jennifer Adamson, his father's child from a previous relationship. Tragically, in 2000, she succumbed to a drug overdose at the age of 30.

Eight years later, another wave of grief hit close to home when his older sister, Dakota Culkin, lost her life after being struck by a car while crossing the street on her way to buy "some Gatorade and cigarettes," according to Macaulay's recounting to Esquire. She was 29 and just one year older than Macaulay. The two were close and talked frequently. Macaulay shared with Esquire that during their final conversation, his sister imparted the advice to "stay focused and enthused." In April 2021, he and his girlfriend, Brenda Song, celebrated the arrival of their first child. In a heartfelt tribute, they named their newborn Dakota.

He was booed off stage

One of Macaulay Culkin's many projects outside of acting included leading the pizza-themed comedy rock band The Pizza Underground. Collaborating with fellow bandmates Matt Colbourn, Phoebe Kreutz, Deenah Vollmer, and Austin Kilham, Culkin contributed to the band's sound through the kazoo, percussion, and vocals. The band gained attention for its clever twist on songs by the Velvet Underground, replacing original lyrics and titles with pizza-themed alternatives. The Pizza Underground embarked on a North American tour in 2014, comprising 18 shows. However, their reception took a downturn when they made their way overseas.

In May 2014, at the Dot to Dot Festival in Nottingham, England, the audience at the music venue Rock City expressed disapproval, booing the band off stage and even throwing pints of beer during Culkin's kazoo solo. Despite canceling the remaining U.K. shows, the band insisted the decision was unrelated to the Rock City incident. The Pizza Underground faced its final curtain call in the summer of 2016, when Culkin announced the band's breakup and declared their upcoming album their last.

He went through a divorce

Macaulay Culkin is the type of guy who's lived many lives, and in one of those, he was married for a brief two years. Culkin and actor Rachel Miner both attended the Professional Children's School and met when they were 14. In his interview with New York magazine, Macaulay reflected on the first impression he left: "On the first day of school, she said, 'Hi, my name is Rachel,' and I said, 'Yeah, welcome to the school,' or whatever. She thought I was such a jerk for not saying, 'And my name is Mack.'"

They eventually began an on-again-off-again relationship in which they broke up three times. To avoid a fourth breakup after getting back together again, Culkin proposed. In 1998, they exchanged vows in a modest stone church in Connecticut at the age of 17. However, the union ended in a separation two years later, finalized by a divorce in 2002. Despite the dissolution of their marriage, a spokesperson affirmed to The Guardian that "they remain the best of friends." "What can I say?" Culkin told New York magazine. "She was my girl."

He had another rough breakup with Mila Kunis

Before his divorce from Rachel Miner was finalized, Macaulay Culkin entered a long-term relationship with "That '70s Show" star Mila Kunis. The couple began dating in May 2002 and led a very private life together for eight years. Despite their initial efforts, the relationship eventually ran its course, leading to a quiet separation. 

The announcement of their split came in 2011, leaving the reason behind the breakup shrouded in mystery until Kunis decided to share her perspective on the podcast "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" in 2018. During their conversation, she revealed the true nature of the breakup, describing it as "terrible" and expressing regret for her actions in her 20s. "It's f***ed up what I did, and it's f***ed up how I did it," she said.

While the specifics remain unclear, the breakup ultimately paved the way for positive developments in both their lives. Kunis went on to marry her "That '70s Show" co-star Ashton Kutcher, and Culkin has since embarked on a new chapter, building a family with his long-time girlfriend, Brenda Song. In 2022, the couple welcomed their second child.

He was arrested for drug possession

In 2004, Macaulay Culkin faced legal trouble in Oklahoma City after law enforcement discovered 17.3 grams of marijuana and two controlled substances in his possession. According to the arrest report obtained by The Los Angeles Times , the incident unfolded when an Oklahoma City police officer pulled over a speeding car on an interstate, with Culkin seated in the passenger seat and his friend Brett M. Tabisel behind the wheel. The vehicle was en route from New York to Los Angeles. 

Upon obtaining permission to search the car, the officer uncovered the illicit substances concealed in plastic sandwich bags and a metal cigarette box. Culkin and Tabisel willingly surrendered the drugs. After a brief stint in jail, Culkin was released on $4,000 bail. Subsequently, he appeared in court to address misdemeanor drug offenses, initially entering a plea of not guilty. However, he later changed his plea to guilty. As a result, Culkin received three one-year suspended prison sentences, one for each charge. Additionally, he was obligated to pay a total of $940 in fees.

Rumors of substance abuse circulated

Following Macaulay Culkin's drug arrest, rumors of substance abuse began surfacing in the tabloids. Despite completing a required drug and alcohol assessment establishing that Culkin didn't have a drug problem, outlets ran with the juicy story and pushed the typical narrative of a child actor gone wrong. Photos of a gaunt-looking Culkin started circulating, and some reports went as far as to claim that Culkin was addicted to heroin and prescription drugs, which his reps adamantly denied. Culkin addressed the rumors himself in his interview with Esquire, revealing, "I never went so far down that road where I needed outside help." He added for clarity, "I don't do drugs recreationally."

Since then, Culkin has consistently demonstrated to the world that he's as well-rounded as any child actor of his scale could ever be. He told Esquire, "I've got something to show for it, man. I mean, look at me: I got money, I got fame, I got a beautiful girlfriend and a beautiful house and beautiful animals ... I want for nothing and need for even less. I'm good, man." More recently, Culkin has experienced an acting resurgence with his role in "American Horror Story: Double Feature," which was met with critical acclaim. In 2023, he received a well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a testament to his enduring accomplishments and the recognition of his contributions to the entertainment industry.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues or may be the victim of child abuse, contact the relevant resources below:

The  Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453)  or contact their live chat services .

From ‘Home Alone’ to Walk of Fame: Macaulay Culkin’s Rise from Child Star to Successfully Living Just Outside the Spotlight

There are “child stars,” and then there are performers that start working during childhood only to become bona fide, beloved screen icons, enjoying long, varied careers throughout their lives. Following in the footsteps of Shirley Temple, Natalie Wood and Mickey Rooney, Macaulay Culkin has — for three decades and counting — been a contemporary standard bearer for that personal and professional journey.

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O’Hara remembers being first introduced to Culkin through his work with “Home Alone” writer John Hughes. “I’d seen him in ‘Uncle Buck’ with dear John Candy and thought, ‘Where did this beautiful little boy come from?’” she recalls. “He was most obviously gifted with a beautiful face, but he was also a really natural actor. He was so relatable and real.”

O’Hara admits she watched with a mix of fascination and trepidation as Culkin became a pint-sized Hollywood powerhouse, appearing in “My Girl,” “The Good Son,” “The Nutcracker” and “Richie Rich” in rapid succession. “It was more like either the Beatles or Elvis Presley — or Gandhi! It’s crazy to put that on a child.” She says that he handled the success and attention generated by the films better than many of his older counterparts. “He was cool, he was a kid, but he was the reason it was this hit. How many adults have ever been subjected to that kind of adoration?” she ponders. “He never seemed he was in show business to build a worldwide fan club.

“I think Macaulay survived it to become a fine young man,” O’Hara says of his decision to step out of the tsunami of fame, regardless of what the industry wanted from him. “He had, somehow, the wisdom and self-preservation at the age of 14 or something to say ‘stop.’ He chose to allow himself a life outside of the work, and he’s been making his own choices since.”

As a then-fellow child actor, Seth Green eyed Culkin from afar during his colleague and future friend’s ascent. “This kid hit the scene like Anakin Skywalker and everybody is saying ‘He is the literal new coming,’” recalls Green, who admired the young star for different reasons than his projects. “He handled himself so well with all of the chaos and silliness swarming around him.

“I saw him take a particular type of control over his public image, especially when he realized that photographers were following him. He would give them something to talk about, like dye his hair pink or wear a Rolex to school. I watched him literally take control over his own existence — to become emancipated and get married — and start to shape how he wanted to be seen.”

Green developed a deeper friendship with Culkin in adulthood, after the two of them worked together on the 2003 film “Party Monster.” Though he’d later direct Culkin in “Changeland” and collaborate with him frequently on “Robot Chicken,” Green says they bonded over shared attitudes about the ups and downs of stardom. “We definitely saw eye to eye about the grain of salt with which you can take the things that get thrown at you in this life — especially trying to be the person inside the icon.”

Fellow “Party Monster” cast member Natasha Lyonne reiterates that there’s a special bond between individuals thrown into the entertainment industry at a young age. “There is this unspoken language that child actors seem to have — granted, Macaulay Culkin was as ubiquitous as Shirley Temple! [But] immediately our relationship was one of a deep, intuitive understanding, and this protective instinct for each other.”

As his example has helped his siblings navigate their own careers, such as younger brother Kieran’s own starmaking turn on HBO’s “Succession,” Lyonne seems grateful to Culkin — and yet protective of him — for triumphing over the adversity he faced, and the sometimes unflattering attention it generated in the process. “Not to be too emo about it, but my inner child fucking loves Mac and would kill for him automatically, just by virtue of knowing that we both saw it to adulthood.”

She suggests that Culkin’s resilience has equipped him to handle celebrity as an adult. “Mac is just very much the real deal. He doesn’t need more pictures of himself or to be in a ‘Stars: They’re Just Like Us,’” Lyonne says. “He’s like, I’ll be over here actually making things in private.’ And more importantly, he’s made a really beautiful life for himself.”

Along with the zealous privacy he maintains with his partner Brenda Song and their two children, Culkin’s selectivity as an adult actor — leading to roles like those in “American Horror Story: Double Feature” and “The Righteous Gemstones” — has only enhanced his mystique over the years. Green recalls how his frequent appearances each year at New York Comic-Con on behalf of “Robot Chicken” would jokingly mark “the annual public appearance of Macaulay Culkin.”

“One of the kids got up and asked, ‘Hey, Mac, what rock have you been hiding under?’ And the whole audience was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,’” he remembers. “The truth is, he could not leave his house for two straight years and he would still be more relevant than anyone in that room.”

Green says the connection fans have with Culkin make him eminently worthy of being immortalized on the Walk of Fame. “That sidewalk, it’s meant to convey the permanent icons of Hollywood — and if there is anyone who has made an impact, it is this kid.”

WHAT: Macaulay Culkin receives his star on the Walk of Fame WHEN: 11:30 a.m, Dec. 1 WHERE: 6353 Hollywood Blvd. WEB: walkoffame.com

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The Transformation Of Macaulay Culkin From Childhood To 41

If you were a kid in the '90s, chances are you grew up watching A LOT of Macaulay Culkin movies. Maybe you watched "Home Alone" every Christmas, cried your eyes out during that certain bee scene in " My Girl ," or dreamt of visiting a magical land full of literary characters like in " The Pagemaster ." Any way you split it, Macaulay Culkin (or "Mack," as he prefers ) remains the paradigm of nostalgia personified for many millennials.

The "Home Alone" star has been famous for over 30 years, so naturally, we've seen him grow and change a lot over the decades. The little boy who slapped his face with aftershave lives on in the pantheon of pop culture icons, but there are plenty of other Culkin moments that are nearly as memorable, like when he played a glammed-out character in " Party Monster ," his long-haired hipster phase, or when the lovable eccentric was  caught by the paps walking his cat in a stroller while wearing a shirt that read "emotional support human." From "Home Alone" to the Gucci runway, let's take a look at how the child star has transformed over the years.

Macaulay Culkin grew up in NYC

Macaulay Culkin was born in New York City in 1980 and was the third oldest of seven children. "My mom didn't have a family. She had a litter," he joked on " The Ellen DeG eneres Show ." "We grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. ...We lived on top of each other. ... We were a close-knit family because of that," he explained. A few of his siblings, most notably Kieran Culkin , have gone on to have solid showbiz careers as well. Their father, Kit, was an actor and dancer and encouraged his children to pursue dance and theater at a young age. Once Macaulay began getting roles, his parents became his managers.

While he was close with his mother and siblings, his father was allegedly abusive. Macaulay said they had always disliked each other, and he speculated that jealousy played a part in his father's cruel tendencies. He said on " WTF with Marc Maron ," "Everything that he tried to do in his life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old." Macaulay added, "He was abusive, physically and mentally. ... I can show you all my scars." Even though he hasn't spoken to his father for decades, he said, "I have forgiveness in my heart."

His first roles were on stage

Off-Broadway theater was Macaulay Culkin's first foray into the arts and entertainment business. The "little sailor boy" in a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore" was one of his earliest roles, he revealed to Marc Maron on " WTF ."

Culkin made a rapid transition to the screen , appearing as a guest star in the TV series "The Equalizer" in 1988. That same year, he also made his film debut in "Rocket Gibraltar." But his breakthrough role was in the 1989 John Hughes film, " Uncle Buck ," starring John Candy. "I was very lucky. I started booking movies kind of right off the bat. ... Billy Hopkins, who was a casting director, he actually directed me in some of that black box theater kind of stuff. He also did a lot of John Hughes things. ... So then, boom, 'Uncle Buck' happens, and, you know, s*** rolls downhill," Culkin explained to Maron. 

At the same time, he was also entering the ballet world. At the age of 8, he was accepted into the School of American Ballet and played the role of Fritz in the New York City Ballet's "The Nutcracker" for the 1988 season, per The New York Times . "I was almost a ballet dancer first for a while there. Like I'd go off and do 'Uncle Buck,' and then I'd turn around and go back home to do 'The Nutcracker' at Lincoln Center," he said on  "The Ellen DeGeneres Show ."

The unexpected success of Home Alone

"Home Alone" is the film that solidified Macaulay Culkin's place as one of the most famous child stars ever. The role was practically written for him. John Hughes, who had been responsible for a number of '80s teen hits , including "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles," and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," came up with the idea of "Home Alone" shortly after "Uncle Buck." Hughes explained in an interview with Bobbie Wygant , "[Macaulay Culkin] was in the back of my mind. I had just finished 'Uncle Buck' and I had a wonderful experience with him there. He was a great deal of fun to work with."

The casting director, Janet Hirshenson, did a quick search to make sure Culkin was the right fit for the role, but "there wasn't anyone better than Macaulay," she said in an interview with Independent . The director, Chris Columbus, added, "No one else had whatever quality Mack had. He felt like a real kid but was also incredibly charming and extraordinarily funny ... Mack was slightly imperfect too, which was great. One ear was kind of bent, he didn't look like other kids — but everyone who met him fell in love with him and for me, that's a movie star."

"Home Alone" was a low-budget film that surprised everyone with its massive success. It went on to become the highest-grossing John Hughes movie, the highest-grossing comedy of all time , and the third highest-grossing movie ever at the time.

The actor's rise to mega stardom

After the runaway success of "Home Alone," Macaulay Culkin went on to become the biggest little movie star of the early '90s. Movie studios trying to cash in on the popularity of the young actor flooded him with job offers. "I did like 14 movies in six years or something like that," he said in an interview on " The Ellen DeGeneres Show ." Those movies included  "My Girl," "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," "The Good Son," "Getting Even with Dad," "The Pagemaster," and "Richie Rich."

His movie paydays increased accordingly. According to Celebrity Net Worth , he went from a $100,000 salary for "Home Alone" to making $1 million for "My Girl." He brought in $4.5 million for "Home Alone 2," and by the time he filmed "Richie Rich," he was getting paid $8 million per movie.

Even more exposure was inevitable. He hosted SNL in 1991 at the age of 11, becoming one of the series' youngest hosts ever. The worldwide fame that followed made for a difficult childhood and a loss of privacy. "I really couldn't remember a time when people weren't gawking at me and there weren't people in the bushes with cameras," he said on " The Tonight Show ."

His friendship with Michael Jackson

During the dizzying heights of his early 1990s fame, Macaulay Culkin considered Michael Jackson his closest friend. "He was my best friend growing up," he explained to Marc Maron on " WTF ." Culkin spent a lot of time hanging out with Jackson at Neverland Ranch and appeared in his music video, " Black and White. "

According to Culkin, Jackson reached out to him as a former child star trying to look after other child stars. On the podcast " Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum ," he explained, "I mean at the end of the day, it's almost easy to try to say it was weird or whatever, but it wasn't, because it made sense. ... I was a peerless person. ... and he was the kind of person who'd been through the exact same frickin' thing and wanted to make sure that I wasn't alone." Culkin said the "King of Pop" was a "sweet" and "hilarious" BFF and added, "It was a normal friendship."

In 2005, Culkin came to Jackson's defense against sexual abuse allegations. He told New York Magazine that he "didn't want to get involved with the whole thing," but after two of Jackson's former employees testified they had witnessed Jackson molest Culkin when he was a child, he gave a testimony in the trial , which played a huge part in Jackson's exoneration at the time. They remained friends until the pop star's death in 2009. Culkin serves as godfather to Jackson's children, sharing  matching tattoos with Paris Jackson .

Macaulay Culkin temporarily retired at 14

"Richie Rich" was Macaulay Culkin's last movie as a child actor. Weary of show business at 14, he made the decision to live life out of the spotlight for a while, go to high school, and make friends who were the same age as he was. "I was tired of it, to be honest. ... I needed to grow and develop as a person," he said in an interview on " The Ellen DeGeneres Show ."

At the time, his parents, who had never been legally married, were separating and in the midst of a costly legal battle for custody of their children. "After I did 'Richie Rich' ... and then my father and my mother finally called it quits," he explained on " WTF ," "I was able to actually walk away from the business. ... I just was like, 'I'm done. I'm done guys. I hope y'all made your money because there's no more coming from me." 

But all that money — and we're talking millions — was sitting in a bank account with his parents' name on it, not to be touched until he was 18. In order to protect his money, Culkin had to make some pretty serious financial decisions before he was old enough to drive. In an interview with Esquire , he explained, "I legally took my parents' names off of my trust fund and found an executor, someone who would look over my finances, just in case anyone wanted to stick their f***ing pinkie in the pie."

Macaulay Culkin married Rachel Miner when he was 17

During Macaulay Culkin's time away from the limelight, he attended high school at The Professional Children's School in New York City. While there, he began dating a fellow classmate and actor, Rachel Miner , who had appeared on the soap opera "Guiding Light" in the early '90s. She went on to star in films, including "Bully" in 2001, followed by a television career, playing prominent characters in "Californication" and "Supernatural," among others.

The two teenage actors were "high school sweethearts" and "loved each other very much," Culkin explained on " The Tonight Show ." "This is how we decided to convey our love — we got married," he said. They were only 17 when they tied the knot. According to Culkin, Miner had already broken up with him three times before he popped the question. "I pinned her down and said, 'Okay, marry me now before you break up with me again,' so she did," he recalled, noting he didn't actually physically pin her down.

But this teenage love story came to an end a couple of years later. Culkin and Miner separated in 2000 and officially divorced in 2002 .

He returned to acting when he was 20

After six years away from acting, Macaulay Culkin was ready to dive in again. His comeback began in 2000 on a London West End theater stage, starring in "Madame Melville," a play about a student who is seduced by his teacher. He told BBC News , "As a senior in high school you figure out what you want to do with your life. I asked myself if I wanted to get back into acting and thought: 'Yes but under my own terms and nothing like it was before.'"

He decided to be very selective about what projects he works on. "I am not revving to do a big Hollywood comeback. All I want is to do good things with good people. It doesn't matter if it is a play or film. I just want to do my own thing," he also stated in the BBC interview. The 2003 true-story club-kid drama, " Party Monster ," fell under that category for him. The low-budget film, which also starred Seth Green, Wilmer Valderrama, Chloe Sevigny, and Dylan McDermott, was met with mostly unfavorable reviews (it holds a 29% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes ) but gained a cult following and has arguably earned its place as a camp classic.

That same year, Culkin made a comedic return as a guest star on " Will & Grace ." In 2004, he starred alongside Mandy Moore and Jena Malone in " Saved! ," a well-received teen comedy about a Christian high school.

He was arrested in 2004

In 2004, Macaulay Culkin was arrested for drug possession. After he and a friend were pulled over for speeding, the police found marijuana, as well as Xanax and clonazepam that he didn't have a prescription for, reported CNN . The arrest, Culkin believed, was blown way out of proportion. "You know, I am a former child actor ... I'm supposed to be a lot more f***ed up than I am. I took a certain amount of pride that I wasn't that cliché, so it was, like, 'Oh, great, I gave a lot of people exactly what they wanted,'" he told New York Magazine .

In reality, he wasn't the partying, drugged-out former child star everyone assumed him to be after his arrest. When Larry King asked him about his drug use, he said, "Everything that I do, for some reason, becomes this big crazy thing, you know, even though any normal person does it. Like, yeah, I'm a kid. I had a beer, I smoked a joint. Big deal. ... I never had a problem."

But gossip about drug addiction persisted for years. In 2012, rumors swirled that Culkin was addicted to heroin, according to Reel Chicago . He assured The Guardian in 2016, "No, I was not pounding 6 grand of heroin every month or whatever. The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern. No, you're trying to shift papers."

He published a novel in 2006

In 2006, Macaulay Culkin published a book called " Junior ." Part novel, part memoir, the book is an assortment of story fragments, snippets, drawings, and poems. He may have written a book, but his introduction plainly states, "I am not a writer." He proceeds to explain , "I'm not trying to pass this book off as something it is not. This is just a bunch of stuff I put together and someone said 'Hey, you should write a book,' so I did."

Critics of the book were a little harsh. For instance, Publisher's Weekly called it a "self-indulgently infantile book." But Culkin was already mentally prepared for that kind of labeling. "I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book," he told New York Magazine .

Despite the haters, Culkin said he was proud of putting it out into the world. "The whole experience is frightening because I'm putting my words out there in a way that can just be twisted ... [but] it's a great process for me. ... I'm totally scared to death doing it, but then when I come out the other end of it, I'm so glad that I did it," he told Conan O'Brien in an interview promoting the book.

Macaulay Culkin was in an 8-year relationship with Mila Kunis

When Macaulay Culkin started dating Mila Kunis in 2002, she was 18 years old. He was 21 . The couple stayed together for 8 years. "We're incredibly private ... We like to read books or play video games or watch TV or go to the movies. And he's an amazing cook. He makes dinner every night," Kunis told Parade in 2007. Explaining that Culkin is very different from how the media often tries to portray him, she called him "so sweet" and said, "There are a lot of things people want him to be that he's not. He's an amazing, simple guy, who is probably the most brilliant person I've ever met."

Though they both became famous at a very young age (Kunis was only 14 when she started working on "That '70s Show"), Culkin's fame must have made keeping their private lives out of the spotlight difficult. "You couldn't walk down the street with him," Kunis told Howard Stern . "Like fans just screamed ... they didn't know how to react. It wasn't like a normal response to a celebrity. Fans responded in a very abnormal way to him."

Kunis called their breakup "horrible" and told Dax Shepard on " Armchair Expert " that the split was her fault. "I f***ed up. I was an a**hole in my 20s, and I'll be the first to admit it. ... It's f***ed up what I did and f***ed up how I did it," she confessed.

He formed Pizza Underground in 2013

In 2013, Macaulay Culkin began focusing a lot of his time on a Velvet Underground cover band called Pizza Underground . The band changed lyrics of Velvet Underground songs to make them into songs about pizza. "It was a lark that we did. ... we recorded something in my living room ... then just put it online and kind of forgot about it," he explained on Marc Maron's podcast, " WTF ."

The "lark" went viral shortly after. Before their first show at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn, Culkin and his bandmates were shocked to find a "line four-people wide around the block," he recalled to Maron. "We kind of hit that hipster strike zone ... The Brooklyn hipsters freaking love that kind of thing," he added. What started as a joke ended up taking off, and they went on several tours.

Believe it or not, Lizzo was the opening act on their tour. Lizzo and Macaulay Culkin have been friends for nearly a decade (he even made a guest appearance in Lizzo's " Faded " video in 2014). In 2019, Culkin interviewed his old pal on his podcast, " Bunny Ears ," and they reminisced about their simpler Pizza Underground days. "It's one of the more embarrassing things to say, is that Lizzo opened for Pizza Underground," Culkin said. "We were not anywhere near your level even then." Lizzo responded, "What do you mean? The pizza box was a drum. ... It was incredible." Lizzo would also sing a song with them every night about "a sexy pizza man."

The actor started living in Paris in 2013

In 2013, Macaulay Culkin relocated to Paris. One of the many reasons he liked Paris was because he wasn't gawked at in public as much. He told Marc Maron on " WTF ," "I thought nobody recognized me, and what it was was, 'No, we recognize you. We just don't care.' ... I was like, 'Where have you people been my whole life?'"

He was friends with a group of musicians and artists who lived there, including Pete Doherty . "During one of my trips, [my friends] said, 'When are you going to move out here?' and I said, 'How's next week?' ... and I've been living in Paris for the last four years," Culkin told Maron in the 2018 interview. He jokingly added, "I'm a 30-something retired person ... walking around with a baguette tucked under my arm. I'm living the romantic life."

He vibed with the way Parisians live their life. "It's a special place," he said on the " The Joe Rogan Experience ," "Food and wine is fantastic. The girls are pretty. It's the leisurely lifestyle ... I like their eating habits." But his French living didn't last forever. He revealed on " Bunny Ears " that he had sold his apartment in Paris in 2019: "I lived there for like five years or something like that but I eventually had to give it up." He cited his girlfriend, Brenda Song , as the reason, saying, "I have a lady. ... I'm Mr. Suburban Domesticated."

Macaulay Culkin began dating Brenda Song in 2017

Macaulay Culkin met Brenda Song, a former Disney Channel star, in 2017 on the set of " Changeland ," a movie directed by Culkin's longtime pal Seth Green. The pair instantly bonded over entering show business at an early age. "Child actors, we don't even get to talk about it, you just look each other in the eye and you nod and we know," Song told  ET .

A romance soon sparked between the two former child stars. In its 2020 cover story on Culkin, Esquire wrote that when he first started dating Song, "the feeling that it was too good to be true almost overwhelmed him." Song was just as smitten. She told the publication, "People don't realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is. Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he's 100 percent okay with that. And that to me is an incredibly sexy quality. He's worked really hard to be the person he is."

The couple has one child together, Dakota, who was born in April 2021 . On January 26, 2022, People reported that Culkin and Song were engaged.

He launched Bunny Ears in 2018

Macaulay Culkin branched into another realm of entertainment when he started Bunny Ears . The website features satirical articles and a Culkin-hosted podcast. He described it as "Goop meets The Onion" on " The Tonight Show ," while the website's " About Us " page says it's "a world-class comedy brand created in 2017 when former Pagemaster Macaulay Culkin woke up from his long slumber (fondly referred to as the 'Culkin-Sleep'), took a hard look at the Internet, and realized it was all pretty sh**ty."

His aim was to bring a little bit of quirky sunshine to the dark and mean crevices of the internet. Bunny Ears editor, Shawn DePasquale, told Dazed , "The internet can be as wonderful or as awful as you allow it. We're looking to contribute to the positive side of the internet. We want to be one of those sites that puts out content that reminds people, 'Oh s***. The internet is f***ed up and weird as hell, but I love it.'"

Some of Culkin's personal favorite articles include " The Beginner's Guide to Regretting Buying That Turtle " and " The Beginner's Guide to Faking Your Own Death " because they are "humorous yet informational, and that's what Bunnyears.com is all about," he told Dazed.

Macaulay Culkin is happy and living a 'full life'

Macaulay Culkin doesn't actively pursue acting anymore, though he'll occasionally do things if they interest him. After making a number of high-grossing films when he was a kid, Culkin is pretty much set for life money-wise, considering his net worth, which  Celebrity Net Worth  lists as $18 million. In a 2018 interview with Ellen DeGeneres , he said, "I felt like some kid worked really, really hard and I inherited all of his money ... It allows me to treat everything like a hobby." And he's happy with that. "I live a very rich, full, silly, life. And I wouldn't have it any other way," he said on the " WTF " podcast. 

As far as the past goes, he's not bitter about any of it and, in fact, is as grateful as grateful can be. "Certain f***ed-up things happened, but f***ed-up things happen to kids all the time and they don't come out the other end. I've got something to show for it ... I got money, I got fame, I got a beautiful girlfriend and a beautiful house and beautiful animals. ... I want for nothing and need for even less," he told Esquire .

He also maintains a healthy dose of humor surrounding his childhood fame and, after all this time, still knows he has a special place in many people's nostalgia. On his 40th birthday, he tweeted , "Hey guys, wanna feel old? I'm 40. You're welcome." The tweet went viral and became one of the most liked tweets ever.

He went back to acting again

Ever in and out of retirement, Macaulay Culkin returned to acting in 2021 for the 10th season of "American Horror Story." His character, Mickey, quickly became a fan favorite . Culkin's co-star Leslie Grossman told E! News  that "it was an absolute joy to work with Macaulay" and said she was impressed with his "vulnerability" as an actor. His stint on "AHS" proved once again that Culkin has a lot to give as an actor and that fans are as happy as ever to see him lighting up their screens.

In 2021, Culkin was also spotted walking in Gucci's "Love Parade" fashion show. Because of his tendency to shy away from Hollywood events, Vogue reported, "The arrival of former child star Macaulay Culkin was something of a plot twist." But 2021 found Culkin slowly returning to life in the public eye. And there was more to come.

In February 2022,  Deadline  reported that Culkin had a television series in the works called "Macaulay Culkin's Midlife Crisis." Producers Jonathan and Simon Chinn told the outlet, "Despite [Macaulay Culkin's] legendary status, like the rest of us he's having to confront what it means to be a normal middle-aged guy, with a wife and a new kid who's soon going to be the same age he was when he became a massive global superstar. We are thrilled to be working through our mid-life crises with him on this exciting project." Sounds like some much-needed comfort content for '80s and early-'90s kids.

'Home Alone' star Macaulay Culkin honored during Walk of Fame ceremony

"I feel such esteem from this whole thing," Culkin said.

Macaulay Culkin received a Walk of Fame star this week.

The actor, 43, who is known for his roles in "Home Alone," "Richie Rich," "My Girl" and more, was honored during a ceremony in Hollywood on Friday.

"Thank you to the Walk of Fame committee for honoring me in this way. I feel such esteem from this whole thing," Culkin said. "There's so many people that I love, and to feel that love back is just amazing."

He also thanked Brenda Song, with whom he shares two sons.

MORE: Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song welcome baby son Dakota

"You are absolutely everything, you're my champion," he said as he held back tears. "You're the only person happier for me today than I am. You're not only the best woman I've ever known, you're the best person I've ever known. You've given me just all my purpose. You've given me family."

"And after the birth of our two boys, you've become one of my three favorite people," he added. "You're somewhere in there. But I love you. I love you so much."

Culkin ended his speech by reciting his iconic line from "Home Alone."

"To wrap things up, in the spirit of the holiday season. I just want to say, Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals."

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Friends, family and other Hollywood stars, including Seth Green and Paris Jackson, attended the ceremony to support Culkin.

Culkin also had a sweet reunion with his "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" co-star, Catherine O'Hara, who celebrated the actor.

"Families all over the world can't let a year go by without watching and loving 'Home Alone' together. It's because of Macaulay Culkin," O'Hara said. "Yes, he had a most excellent script and a wonderful director. But it is Macaulay Culkin's perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little every boy on an extraordinary adventure."

"I know you worked really hard. I know you do. But you made acting look like the most natural thing of the world to do," she continued. "Macaulay, a 10-year-old boy, this beautiful, dear little 10-year-old boy, was called a superstar, a moneymaker. One of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood. How does anyone survive that? Well, I believe you'd have to possess a certain quality, a gift that dear John Hughes, ['Home Alone' writer and producer], obviously recognized."

"It's a sign of intelligence in a child, and a key to surviving life at any age. And you have, from what I see ... brought that sense of sweet, yet twisted, yet totally relatable sense of humor to everything that you have chosen to do since 'Home Alone.'"

In the first "Home Alone" movie -- as well as its sequel -- O'Hara played Kate McAllister, the mother of Kevin McAllister, portrayed by Culkin, a young boy who mistakenly gets left behind over the holidays and defends his home against a pair of burglars on Christmas Eve. The sequel saw Kevin stranded in New York City during the holidays and fighting the same criminals from the first film.

MORE: Macaulay Culkin shares selfie in 'Home Alone' mask

"Poker Face" actress Natasha Lyonne also took the podium during Friday's ceremony to honor Culkin, with whom she starred in 2016's "Adam Green's Aladdin." The duo also worked together on Lyonne's first short film that she directed, "Cabiria, Charity, Chastity," in 2017. Culkin starred in it alongside Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen.

"Nothing makes me happier than to see you existing so concretely on your own terms and with no loss of your underlying eccentricity or absurdist outlook, or big picture, big heart perspective that sustains us as a community and as a family of artists," Lyonne told Culkin. "So, thank you for being the one and only -- I love you and you're a king."

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'Home Alone' star Macaulay Culkin honored during Walk of Fame ceremony

Macaulay Culkin received a Walk of Fame star this week.

The actor, 43, who is known for his roles in "Home Alone," "Richie Rich," "My Girl" and more, was honored during a ceremony in Hollywood on Friday.

"Thank you to the Walk of Fame committee for honoring me in this way. I feel such esteem from this whole thing," Culkin said. "There's so many people that I love, and to feel that love back is just amazing."

He also thanked Brenda Song, with whom he shares two sons.

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"You are absolutely everything, you're my champion," he said as he held back tears. "You're the only person happier for me today than I am. You're not only the best woman I've ever known, you're the best person I've ever known. You've given me just all my purpose. You've given me family."

"And after the birth of our two boys, you've become one of my three favorite people," he added. "You're somewhere in there. But I love you. I love you so much."

Culkin ended his speech by reciting his iconic line from "Home Alone."

"To wrap things up, in the spirit of the holiday season. I just want to say, Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals."

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Friends, family and other Hollywood stars, including Seth Green and Paris Jackson, attended the ceremony to support Culkin.

Culkin also had a sweet reunion with his "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" co-star, Catherine O'Hara, who celebrated the actor.

"Families all over the world can't let a year go by without watching and loving 'Home Alone' together. It's because of Macaulay Culkin," O'Hara said. "Yes, he had a most excellent script and a wonderful director. But it is Macaulay Culkin's perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little every boy on an extraordinary adventure."

"I know you worked really hard. I know you do. But you made acting look like the most natural thing of the world to do," she continued. "Macaulay, a 10-year-old boy, this beautiful, dear little 10-year-old boy, was called a superstar, a moneymaker. One of the hottest leading young men in Hollywood. How does anyone survive that? Well, I believe you'd have to possess a certain quality, a gift that dear John Hughes, ['Home Alone' writer and producer], obviously recognized."

"It's a sign of intelligence in a child, and a key to surviving life at any age. And you have, from what I see ... brought that sense of sweet, yet twisted, yet totally relatable sense of humor to everything that you have chosen to do since 'Home Alone.'"

In the first "Home Alone" movie -- as well as its sequel -- O'Hara played Kate McAllister, the mother of Kevin McAllister, portrayed by Culkin, a young boy who mistakenly gets left behind over the holidays and defends his home against a pair of burglars on Christmas Eve. The sequel saw Kevin stranded in New York City during the holidays and fighting the same criminals from the first film.

MORE: Macaulay Culkin shares selfie in 'Home Alone' mask

"Poker Face" actress Natasha Lyonne also took the podium during Friday's ceremony to honor Culkin, with whom she starred in 2016's "Adam Green's Aladdin." The duo also worked together on Lyonne's first short film that she directed, "Cabiria, Charity, Chastity," in 2017. Culkin starred in it alongside Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen.

"Nothing makes me happier than to see you existing so concretely on your own terms and with no loss of your underlying eccentricity or absurdist outlook, or big picture, big heart perspective that sustains us as a community and as a family of artists," Lyonne told Culkin. "So, thank you for being the one and only -- I love you and you're a king."

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Macaulay Culkin Explains Where His Life Has Gone in First Interview in 10 Years

"No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin a month."

Beyond that brief appearance in a five-minute film, Culkin's life has been the stuff of rumors, cultivated by the public's lasting fascination in the child star. Is he on drugs? Is he ill? Is he acting? Why is he in a pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band? The questions are plenty, and largely thanks to his avoidance of the spotlight. Culkin hasn't done an interview in 10 years.

But, what's he been doing this whole time?

Despite what appears in the tabloids—still, really—Culkin hasn't been doing a whole lot, according to his first interview in a decade. Though the conversation was strictly monitored by Culkin's publicist, a new article from The Guardian paints the child actor as a pretty chill adult, who more or less does what the hell he wants and has no interest in working or being famous.

"No, I was not pounding six grand of heroin every month or whatever," Culkin said of reports a few years ago that he was addicted to hard drugs. "The thing that bugged me was tabloids wrapping it all in this weird guise of concern. No, you're trying to shift papers."

Culkin and his publicist paint the interview as his comeback story, but Culkin has no real plans to return to work, instead busying himself with bizarre passion projects—like the aforementioned band Pizza Underground, which brought him widespread ridicule.

"It's one of those good ideas you have when you're drunk, and you wake up and forget about it, Culkin said. "But we're taking it to the end of the joke. We have an album coming out, a vinyl pressing with a children's choir, a symphony orchestra. We're giving it away, our gift to the world."

And you have to feel bad for the guy. Our celebrity culture has this sadistic desire to watch child stars fail. But here, you see a guy who just wants to be left alone, to go out on dates without being surrounded by paparazzi and idiots with camera phones.

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Young Adult Fiction

To be a child star is to be a permanent spectacle, a one-man freak show, an eternal curiosity. Macaulay Culkin has been in only two films in the past twelve years, and yet as we walk to our table for lunch at Coffee Shop, people whisper, gawk, and, in one unfortunate instance, forget how to properly sip liquid through a straw. It doesn’t help that, at 25, he still looks startlingly like he did sixteen years ago in Home Alone , when he slapped aftershave on his pale cheeks, gave a bug-eyed shriek, and became a pop-cultural phenomenon before he understood the concept of pop culture. “To a lot of people, I still am that kid,” he acknowledges. “It’s a blessing and a curse. I can go to any restaurant without a reservation, but while I’m there, everyone’s gonna be staring.”

Child actors are supposed to play two roles. As kids, they embody a mythically wholesome version of childhood; as adults, they are expected to personify a more ominous stereotype, living in a state of suspended implosion. “Yeah, it’s funny,” says Culkin. “A lot of people meet me and they’re like, Why aren’t you crazy? ” As if to add to the confusion, he has now produced what he aptly deems “a strange, weird little book” called Junior , a quasi-fictional chronicle of a former child star who may or may not be borderline certifiable. “Yes, it’s me,” says Culkin, “but no, it isn’t, you know?”

In person he is quick-witted and chatty, affable but distant, someone who learned to interact through professional exchanges, not personal ones. He manages to be simultaneously oblique and revealing, constantly checking the tape recorder to make sure it’s picking up everything he says. He tells me repeatedly that he leads a “simple, simple life,” spending his free time walking the dog, feeding the fish, cleaning the house, and cooking for his girlfriend, Mila Kunis, who just ended her run on That 70’s Show . As for his own career, he isn’t retired, as some have surmised, though he jokingly refers to himself as “not exactly the hardest-working actor.”

An understandable position, given his past. Just glossing over Culkin’s coming-of-age is psychologically exhausting: Raised with six siblings in a one-bedroom on Second Avenue and 94th Street, he started scoring choice roles at age 8 and was a millionaire by 10, but his rapid ascent seemed less adorable and precocious the more people learned about his home life. His father, Kit, notoriously ruled the family—“his kingdom,” says Culkin—by humiliation and physical abuse, eventually leaving the household in 1995. That’s when his mother, Patricia, filed a custody suit, igniting a bitter public battle with Kit, and Culkin had his parents legally blocked from controlling his $17 million fortune, a move that forever estranged him from his father, who today Culkin “thinks” lives in Arizona. “I learned how to read court papers at 14,” he says, inadvertently quoting his alter ego, Junior. At 17, Culkin married actress Rachel Miner; by 20, he was divorced. When he was arrested a little more than a year ago for possession of marijuana, he was most frustrated to be perceived as conforming to type. “You know, I am a former child actor,” he says with a sarcastic chuckle. “I’m supposed to be a lot more fucked up than I am. I took a certain amount of pride that I wasn’t that cliché, so it was, like, Oh, great, I gave a lot of people exactly what they wanted. ”

Novels written by celebrities tend to be grating, solipsistic affairs. Given a choice between Ethan Hawke’s literary fiction and the veiled memoirs of glittering train wrecks like Nicole Richie, most sane people would choose television. When I heard that Culkin was now a novelist, I rolled my eyes along with everyone else, a reaction I had to suppress repeating when he prefaced our chat by announcing, “The funny thing is, I’m not really a big reader, not a big fan of books in the first place.” But Junior turns out to be oddly, unwittingly … compelling. A postmodern mishmash filled with drawings, epistolary fragments, personal manifestos, and public diatribes, the book is best appreciated as a piece of conceptual art rather than a legitimate novel. Tear out the pages, staple them to a wall, and you’d have a deconstructionist installation, an accidental dissertation on the crippling self-consciousness brought on by early fame. Child Actor: Fall and Rise.

“In a perfect world, my name wouldn’t even be on it,” says Culkin, who prefers to think of the book as a meta-artifact of celebrity. “It came from the idea of everyone wanting me to write a memoir. I play with that a little bit, the idea of naming names, kind of teasing people, you know?” Early reviews of the book have not been kind—“self-indulgently infantile,” scolded Publishers Weekly —but he isn’t surprised. “I’m not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms,” he says. “To them I’m just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.” If Junior has a clear theme, it’s coping with fame, a subject that brings out Culkin’s caustic side. “I really disassociated myself from ‘Macaulay Culkin’ mentally,” he says. “Like, if someone actually calls out that name on the street, I don’t turn my head. Literally. When I was 14 and I quit, I said I’m never doing that again—say whatever you want about me. That I’m crazy, that I’m an alcoholic. Call me a drug addict. I don’t give a shit anymore. That’s not me anymore. That’s for you. It’s yours. Go ahead, have fun.”

For all its tangents, the book continually circles back to a single subject: Junior’s relationship with his father, a figure who has much in common with Kit Culkin. “I think there’s two different fathers that I have,” says Culkin. “I have my father, and I have the one in my head. The real one is gone and should be gone. But I think I was looking to put the one in my head to rest.” There is not a flicker of emotion as he speaks; it’s as if he’s describing a character in a film rather than the man responsible for his existence and career. “He would black out all the terrible things that he did, and that hurt me more, because he’d go to bed at night thinking he was a good person. People do bad things in their lives. And those sort of things are forgivable. That’s half the point of having confession in church—you need to be able to fess up to what you’ve done. He just couldn’t. It was some kind of mechanism in him or some kind of craziness.” Culkin says he feels a bit guilty over the book, but in a way, he’s been working on it since childhood. “I knew from a very early age that I better take notes on him,” he says of his father. “Notes on how not to be, notes on how I don’t want to be when I grow up.”

In a sense, Culkin has aged in reverse.

“I have a lot of growing up to do,” he tells me at one point, before correcting himself, “or a lot of growing down. I think that’s probably more appropriate.” The stuff of his childhood—work, pressure, fame, wealth, marriage, divorce—reads like a checklist of adult milestones. Meanwhile, at an age when his peers are drifting into adulthood, he is a self-sufficient slacker enjoying a latent adolescence, not worrying about money or work or the future. Even the book isn’t a calculated career move so much as a lark. As he puts it, “Maybe now that I’m older, given my freedom, instead of cutting shapes out of construction paper, I’ve been making a little book.”

The following night, Culkin invites me to pick him up at his downtown loft—a nondescript building, no doorman—to grab a beer and play some pool. Walking over to Soho Billiards, he lights a Parliament and talks about the rather unusual dynamics of his family. Since gaining control of his finances, Culkin has played the role of reluctant father, subsidizing the lives of his siblings as well as his mother. “I have a family to support,” he says later, racking the balls. “Essentially it’s like an allowance. It’s hard. You don’t want to feel like you’re controlling, like you’re in charge. There’s always a little more money around Christmastime—large family, lots of presents.”

“It’s the worst possible thing I could have done for myself. Now I have to stand by it. I can’t just throw it out there and act like I’m ashamed of it.”

When Culkin’s younger brother Kieran learned of the book, he was concerned that it would be used to fan flames that in recent years have finally stopped smoldering. “They were the right fears,” Culkin concedes, mentioning recent tabloid headlines ( Daily News: MACAULAY WRITES A SCARY FAMILY SAGA; Post: TOME ALONE—INSIDE MACAULAY CULKIN’S MADMAN DIARY). “Yeah, it’s the worst possible thing I could have done for myself,” he says flippantly. “Now I have to stand by it. I can’t just throw it out there and act like I’m ashamed of it.” He mulls this over. “I’m willing to face whatever comes with this, from critics, people trying to make it more sensational than it is. This is not a sensational book. There’s no Michael Jackson references at all, so get that out of your head right now.”

That’s easier said than done, given that it was less than a year ago that Culkin testified for the defense during the pop star’s molestation trial. “You know, I didn’t want to get involved with the whole thing,” he says. “It was a big, fat mess. I almost wanted to say to him, ‘You should have known better, just to even have those kind of people in your life.’ ” He thinks for a moment and continues. “I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I’ve become the resident Michael Jackson expert. We’re close, he’s a good friend of mine, we definitely have a connection that most people don’t have, but he’s a friend that I talk to once a year.” When they talk, Culkin always encourages Jackson to get back to music. “You know, call up the Roots, call up the Beastie Boys, call up Björk.” The last time they spoke was a few months after the trial: “He sounded better …” He trails off, distracted. “One of the things that I always thought is that I could have turned out that way. I’m a fairly sheltered person, but I could have just put up a fortress around myself, bought a big chunk of land somewhere, and said, ‘Fuck all y’all!’ But I made a decision when I was 14 that I was going to live life, where I think he made the opposite decision. It’s a cool little world that he has, but at the same time, it’s become a little more distant from reality.”

Of course, being in the real world isn’t always easy. As we play pool, a woman approaches, staring at him unapologetically.

“Um, I think you’re staring at me,” Culkin finally says, causing the woman to snap out of her trance.

“Oh, uh, is that Macaulay … ?”

“No, only on my good days.”As she vanishes, Culkin laughs. “As I’ve gotten older,” he says, “I’ve realized that when it comes to things like that, people are acting out of character.” Usually, when he points out their gawking, they apologize and go on their way. Not in this case. A few minutes later the woman is back.

“I didn’t mean to scare you!” she snipes. “And don’t worry, you’re not that cute!”Culkin shrugs. “I think she just misheard me.”

It’s the sort of moment—as crushing as it is common—that provides a window into why a child star might, say, grow up to write a schizophrenic pseudo-novel. But Culkin has never been one for self-pity, and over the past five years, he has learned to enjoy himself. “I had some good times,” he says with a mischievous grin. “I was single, a divorcé. It’s not like I never went to clubs and bars and flirted with every waitress in New York City.” After a prolonged period of standard-issue early-twenties indulgence, he issued a personal edict: “I decided to be abstinent or asexual or whatever. I made a vow, yeah.” It was then that he met Kunis, whom he speaks of fawningly, finding a way to reference her in every other sentence. Though the two aren’t engaged, they often joke that they’ll end up having kids before they get married, a fittingly accelerated version of domesticity. “Being promiscuous is only fun for so long,” he says. “I decided that’s not who I am. I’m not going to end up like Scott Baio, you know?”

(1.) November 16, 1990: Home Alone released. The film will gross more than $285 million in the U.S. Says L.A. Times critic Peter Rainer, “Culkin has the kind of crack comic timing that’s missing in many an adult star.” (2.) November 14, 1991: Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video—co-starring Culkin—comes out. Jackson will later name Culkin godfather of his son, Prince Michael Jr. (3.) 1997: Considered for the Leonardo DiCaprio role in Titanic. (4.) June 21, 1998: Culkin’s child-bride-and-groom wedding. He and Rachel Miner also appear in a Sonic Youth video—directed by Harmony Korine. (5.) October 18, 2000: Culkin resumes his acting career in a well-reviewed West End production of Madame Melville. In 2001, he reprises the role Off Broadway—the last time he appears onstage. (6.) September 5, 2003: Party Monster released. Culkin plays club kid Michael Alig. Says A. O. Scott of the New York Times: Culkin’s “performance is earnest and brave, but also mannered when it should be un-self-conscious.” (7.) September 17, 2004: After Culkin’s arrest for pot possession, Dennis Miller cracks, “Culkin’s publicist would not comment, because she could not remember who he was.”

Junior By Macaulay Culkin. Miramax Books. 256 pages.

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Kevin (Macaulay Culkin)

Character analysis, in need of attention.

You don't want to mess with Kevin McCallister.

This guy can go from cute kid to villain-from- Saw at a moment's notice. He can act innocent and adorably bratty around his parents, before unleashing the booby traps on his burglar enemies. (Actually, if you have time, check out this article , which makes a convincing argument that Kevin grew up to become Jigsaw from the Saw horror series. We're just throwing that out there.)

In the course of Home Alone , Kevin goes from being a whiny little brat to a hardcore survivalist to an Avenging Fury, smiting down the enemies of the All-American Christmas.

At the beginning, he craves attention. Given that he's a little kid—he's only eight years old—this is understandable. But his family is preoccupied with preparing for their big Christmas trip to France, so it's a bad time for Kevin to be demanding this kind of attention. It doesn't help that his brother Buzz just scarfed down a cheese pizza ordered specifically for Kevin, or that his Uncle Frank won't let him watch the violent movie Angels with Filthy Souls …even though it's not even rated R.

Kevin's attempts to assert himself, attacking Buzz over the pizza thing. This just irritates everyone else in the family. He gets banished to attic bedroom, wishing his family would disappear.

KEVIN: This house is so full of people it makes me sick! When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone! Did you hear me? I'm living alone! I'm living alone!

Kevin soon gets a taste of this solitude and discovers it's not all that it's cracked up to be. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

He Ain't Nothin' to Play With

After Kevin's family accidentally leaves him behind as they go to France (he thinks he made them disappear through a magical wish), he's initially excited. He's king of the castle—with total free reign. He gets to eat all the ice cream he wants, ride a toboggan down the stairs, and watch Angels with Filthy Souls , the (horrible sounding) movie that his obnoxious uncle denied him.

But, gradually, the need to survive overcomes the thrill of his own liberty. Ultimately, he's not purely free, because without his family around, he has responsibilities: he has to buy his own food (like a microwaveable TV dinner) and his own toothpaste. He even purchases fabric softener. Under pressure, Kevin learns how discover his competent inner hero, and his brattiness starts to subside.

Look at how deftly he handles the nosy (but rightfully concerned) lady who checks out his groceries when he goes shopping:

CHECKOUT WOMAN: Are you here all by yourself? KEVIN: Ma'am, I'm eight years old. You think I would be here alone? I don't think so.

At other times, his immaturity gets the best of him. He thinks his neighbor, Mr. Marley, is a serial killer, and runs out of the drugstore when Marley enters, inadvertently stealing a toothbrush in the process. His childish fears are also evident in his fear of the basement, where he imagines the furnace morphing into a monster.

Hey—he's only eight.

Little Kid Becomes Big Kid

But gradually, Kevin gets a better handle on his reactions and he's able to conquer his fear of the basement. Just in time too, because he's got another challenge to face: burglars Harry and Marv (who are just as sleazy as they sound) are creeping around his house and plotting a big break-in. Kevin puts his imagination to work and uses clever ruses—involving a violent VHS tape movie and the silhouette of a Michael Jordan cardboard cut-out—to keep the burglars at bay.

Of course it can't be that easy, and he can't hold them off permanently. He discovers when they're planning on coming back to rob the house, and vows he'll be ready. He's at a point now where taking on a pair of bumbling burglars doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Also in line with this newfound maturity, Kevin realizes Mr. Marley is one of the good guys—or at least that he's definitely not a serial killer. Listening to a choir in church, he and Marley talk to each other, and Kevin urges Marley to reconcile with his estranged son so he can spend Christmas with his granddaughter.

At this point in the story, Kevin's been through a lot. He's realized that he really does want his family back, even though he's capable of surviving without them. See what he tells a Santa impersonator (who works at a Christmas display place):

KEVIN: This is extremely important. Will you please tell Santa that instead of presents this year, I just want my family back. No toys. Nothing but Peter, Kate, Buzz, Megan, Linnie, and Jeff. And my aunt and my cousins. And if he has time, my Uncle Frank. Okay?

Even Uncle Frank gets a shout-out. You know Kevin's lonely if he misses Uncle Frank.

Search and Destroy

So, Kevin's developed as a person. His brattiness has entirely subsided, and he's a seriously competent dude now. But he still has to deal with the burglars…

Finally, the storm of ultra-violence ensues, and Kevin blasts the burglars with a BB gun before leading them through a house full of booby traps. This leaves Marv with a nail in his foot and the imprint of a clothing iron on his face. Harry gets a burned head and hand, and other injuries besides. Kevin's showing them exactly what he's made of: iron.

We realize that he's no one to mess with. He will mess you up. He is the one who knocks .

After being rescued by Marley—who bashes the burglars with his snow shovel, and hands them over to the cops—Kevin waits to see if his family will return. The next day, on Christmas, they do. His mom gets there first, having gone through her own personal journey to reach him. Then, the other family members pour in, having taken a flight she didn't want to wait for.

Kevin impresses everyone with his survival skills, even though he doesn't reveal the truth about the burglars. His transformation complete, all he has left to do is observe the results of his actions coming to fruition.

With Kevin's encouragement, Marley reunites with his son's family, and Kevin waves to him from the window. Kevin's not only gained the ability to help himself, but also to help other people around him. When Buzz flips out because Kevin destroyed his room while he was gone, we sense that Kevin will be more than competent in dealing with him…hopefully.

Let's just hope he doesn't burn Buzz with a blowtorch or drive a nail into his foot.

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W hy's T his F unny?

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

• An eight-year-old troublemaker, mistakenly left home alone, must defend his home against a pair of burglars on Christmas Eve.
• It is Christmas time and the McCallister family is preparing for a vacation in Paris, France. But the youngest in the family, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), got into a scuffle with his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray) and was sent to his room, which is on the third floor of his house. Then, the next morning, while the rest of the family was in a rush to make it to the airport on time, they completely forgot about Kevin, who now has the house all to himself. Being home alone was fun for Kevin, having a pizza all to himself, jumping on his parents' bed, and making a mess. Then, Kevin discovers about two burglars, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), about to rob his house on Christmas Eve. Kevin acts quickly by wiring his own house with makeshift booby traps to stop the burglars and to bring them to justice. — John Wiggins
• It's Christmas time and the McCallister family is preparing to head to Paris for vacation. Eight-year-old Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is the black sheep of the house, who is regularly picked on by his siblings and cousins, and his parents are annoyed by his antics. Kevin finds himself forced to sleep on the third floor of the house. The next day, the McCallisters accidentally sleep in and barely make it to their flight, but when airborne they realize they forgot Kevin. As his family desperately tries to book a flight back to Chicago, Kevin is thrilled to have the house to himself. However, a pair of burglars named Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) have robbed several houses in the neighborhood and now have their sights on the McCallister house. It's up to Kevin to thwart them. — Sam
• At fever pitch for the long-awaited Christmas vacation in picturesque Paris, the McCallister family inadvertently leave behind their eight-year-old son, Kevin, while rushing off to catch their plane. With his parents already in France, much to his delight, young Kevin can finally indulge himself in all the guilty pleasures he was denied, unbeknownst to him that a criminal duo of not-so-capable burglars is preying on the neighbourhood's vacant houses. Of course, the McCallisters' residence is no exception, and before long, the dauntless robbers will visit Kevin, keen on cleaning out his seemingly uninhabited home. Is Kevin, the man of the house, prepared to defend his castle? — Nick Riganas
• Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is an arrogant eight-year-old boy who hates the fact that he lives in a family who constantly bullies him. While his family leaves for their Paris Christmas vacation, they leave him behind by accident. Despite this, Kevin makes the best of this situation, as he finally earns the freedom he's always wished for by jumping on beds, eating ice cream, watching gangster movies, and doing whatever he pleases. However, two robbers, the ever so stupid Marv (Daniel Stern) and his right-hand man, the highly intelligent Harry (Joe Pesci) invade his neighborhood by stealing precious valuables of his neighbors. Now, it's up to Kevin to save the day. He must save his house from being robbed before it's too late with a series of traps. Will he win? Will he get his family back? — Carl Cornell
• The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Paris, gathering at Peter (John Heard) and Kate's home (Catherine O'Hara) in a Chicago suburb on the night before their departure. Peter and Kate's youngest son, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), is the subject of ridicule by his older siblings. Later, Kevin accidentally ruins the family dinner (when he attacks Buzz for eating his plain cheese pizza) and their flight tickets to Paris (the scuffle pours Pepsi all over the tickets and the passport) after a scuffle with his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray), resulting in him getting sent to the attic of the house as a punishment, where he berates Kate and wishes that his family would disappear. Family includes Kevin's older sister Linnie (Angela Goethals), Jeff (Michael C. Maronna), Kevin's older brother and oldest sister Megan (Hillary Wolf). Uncle Frank (Gerry Bamman), Peter's rude older brother and Aunt Leslie (Terrie Snell). Heather (Kristin Minter), Kevin's oldest cousin. Sondra (Daiana Campeanu), Kevin's older cousin. Rod (Jedidiah Cohen), Kevin's older cousin. Fuller (Kieran Culkin), Kevin's youngest cousin. Tracy (Senta Moses), Kevin's older cousin. Brook (Anna Slotky), Kevin's younger cousin. Steffan (Matt Doherty), Kevin's older cousin. Uncle Rob (Ray Toler), Kevin's uncle, younger brother of Peter and Uncle Frank, and father of Heather and Steffan. Georgette (Virginia Smith), Kevin's aunt. During the night, heavy winds damage the power lines, which causes a power outage and resets the alarm clocks, causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind (Mitch Murphy (Jeffrey Wiseman), an eight-year-old neighbor of the McCallisters whom Heather mistakes for Kevin during the headcount). Kevin wakes to find the house empty and, thinking that his wish has come true, is overjoyed with his newfound freedom (Jumping on parent's bed, buzz's playboys, watching R rated movies, destroys Buzz's shelf and releases his tarantula). However, he soon becomes frightened by his next door neighbor, Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom), who is rumored to be a serial killer who murdered his own family in 1958, as well as the "Wet Bandits", Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), a pair of burglars who have been breaking into other vacant houses in the neighborhood and have targeted the McCallisters' house (They cased it the night before they left (posing as cops) and figured the entire family is gone for the holidays to France). Kevin tricks them into thinking that his family is still home, forcing them to put their plans on hold (the first night Kevin turns the basement light on). Kate realizes mid-flight that Kevin was left behind, and upon arrival in Paris, the family discovers that all flights for the next two days are booked. Kate tries to call home, but the phone lines are down. She calls the police, who send an officer home, but Kevin thinks it's the robbers again and hides under the bed. The police think no-one is home. Peter and the rest of the family stay in his brother's apartment in Paris, while Kate manages to get a flight back to the United States (Dallas), but only gets as far as Scranton, Pennsylvania. She attempts to book a flight to Chicago, but again, everything is booked. Unable to accept this, Kate is overheard by Gus Polinski (John Candy), the lead member of a traveling polka band, who offers to let her travel with them to Chicago on their way to Milwaukee in a moving van, which she gratefully accepts. Meanwhile, Harry and Marv finally realize that Kevin is home alone (Harry and Marv hear Peter's message on the answering machine in the house next door they are robbing and are again convinced that Kevin's house is empty. That day Harry and Marv run into Kevin while he is shopping and follow him. Kevin hides in a church and that night preps cardboard cutouts in his house that give the impression (from the window) that there is a big party on inside), and on Christmas Eve, Kevin overhears them discussing plans to break into his house that night (harry and Marv had stayed outside the house all night and founds no one came or went, except Kevin in the morning). Kevin starts to miss his family and asks the local Santa Claus impersonator if he could bring his family back for Christmas. He goes to church and watches a choir perform, then meets Old Man Marley, who dispels the rumors about him. He points out his granddaughter in the choir, whom he never gets to meet, as he and his son are estranged; Kevin suggests that he should reconcile with his son. Kevin returns home and rigs the house with booby traps to take on the burglars. Harry and Marv break in at 9 pm, spring the traps, and suffer various injuries. Harry and Marv try the back door, where Kevin shoots them through the kitty door in the Nards and angers them off. Harry attacks the front door and Marv the basement. Kevin had iced the front porch and hung a heater around the doorknob, blow torch that ignites when the door is opened, glue and feathers rigged to a fan, with Buzz's toy cars at the entrance. Kevin has also iced the basement entrance, hot iron rigged to a light bulb switch, big nails on tar on the basement steps. Marv tries to enter via a window and steps on Christmas ornaments. Full paint cans a lead pipe on the staircase. The tarantula plays its part, by scaring Marv and getting him to hit Harry with a pipe (while he was trying get the spider). While the duo pursues Kevin around the house, he calls the police and flees, then lures Harry and Marv into a neighboring home which they previously broke into. They ambush him and prepare to get their revenge, but Marley intervenes and knocks them unconscious with his snow shovel. The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to Marv's destructive characteristic of flooding them. On Christmas Day, Kevin is disappointed to find that his family is still gone. He then hears Kate enter the house and call for him; they reconcile and are soon joined by Peter, Buzz, Jeff, Megan, and Linnie, who waited in Paris until they could obtain a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's knocked-out gold tooth. Kevin then observes Marley reuniting with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Marley notices Kevin, and the pair wave to each other.

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All About Macaulay and Kieran Culkin's Parents, Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup

The former child actors were born to dad Kit Culkin and mom Patricia Brentrup in the 1980s

Jessica Sager is a contributing writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2023. Her work has previously appeared in Parade, The New York Post, Seventeen, PopCrush and more.

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Macaulay Culkin and Kieran Culkin had unique childhoods thanks to their parents, Christopher Cornelius "Kit" Culkin and Patricia Brentrup.

Macaulay became the breadwinner for his family as a child, starring in the classic Christmas movies Home Alone , Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and the comedy Richie Rich . During this time, Kit and Brentrup began managing their sons' careers, including Macaulay, Kieran and Rory Culkin.

Amid his rising fame, though, Macaulay's finances caused strife within his family, especially after his parents, who had been together since 1974 but never married, separated in 1995.

While Macaulay and Kieran still maintain a relationship with Brentrup, they've been estranged from their father since they were teens — but contrary to rumors, Macaulay clarified to Esquire that he never emancipated himself from his parents.

When Macaulay was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2023, Brentrup was unable to make it to the ceremony because she was "having some hard times with her health ," according to what her husband, Mart Cox, told Page Six .

“Kieran was looking after her and she was going to doctors in the city,” Cox said. “All the kids have been very helpful, oh for sure. Just from Patty, they have a lot of love in them — she is an incredible woman.”

Here's everything to know about Macaulay and Kieran Culkin's parents, Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup.

Their father was an aspiring actor

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Kit was born in New York City on Dec. 6, 1944. He was one of four siblings to a dad in public relations and a mom who was a "short-story writer and book reviewer" before starting a family.

Macaulay and Kieran's father was an actor himself, appearing in the Broadway play Becket in 1961 and the 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton . He also played the role of a dancer in the original West Side Story film in 1961.

Kit's own childhood was far from ideal: His sister, Die Hard and Parenthood actress Bonnie Bedelia, told The Chicago Tribune that their mother died when she and Kit, as well as their brother Terry and sister Candice, were teens. Their father also had health problems that led to them being on their own in their apartment for nearly a full year.

They welcomed Macaulay and Kieran in the 1980s

Brentrup, a North Dakota native, met Kit in 1974 in Sundance, Wyoming, when she was directing traffic at a construction site, and he stopped his truck.

"It was just instant," she told The New York Times in 1991 about their relationship, which they “never found the need to formalize" through legal marriage.

Kit and Brentrup began dating almost right away, The Guardian reported , and moved to N.Y.C., where they started their family. The couple welcomed Macaulay and Kieran — as well as five other children — in 1980 and 1982, respectively.

They struggled financially before their kids' success

Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ; Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty

As their children grew up, Kit worked as a taxi driver before landing a job as a sacristan for a Catholic church on the Upper East Side in N.Y.C. Meanwhile, Brentrup was a telephone operator. The family lived nearby in a railroad-style apartment where five kids shared two bunk beds in a single room.

"It was just a hallway, and there were no separating doors, except for the bathroom, which didn't have a lock," Kieran recalled to Vanity Fair in 2018. "They raised seven kids in that apartment — for years! They just kept bringing babies home to this little space."

At their residence, Kit and Brentrup met a neighbor who was a stage manager at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and they were later introduced to casting director Billy Hopkins. He gave Macaulay his first job at 6 years old in the 1988 drama Rocket Gibraltar starring Burt Lancaster.

Hopkins remembered their humbling beginnings, telling New York Magazine in 2001: "They were so poor I had to use my own money to make sure that he got to and from rehearsal. Macaulay would crawl under the bleachers at the theater to look for change that had fallen out of people’s pockets."

Still, the casting director was hopeful for his success, "He was like a little angel with a tilted halo,” he added. The following year, Macaulay got his breakthrough role in Uncle Buck and landed Home Alone shortly after.

The actor told The Guardian that they continued to live in the apartment for two more years after earning well from his movies, and even after they moved into a larger home, they continued living like they were still in a small space.

All of their kids were child actors

Dave Benett/Getty

Macaulay wasn't the only successful child star from the family.

Kieran starred alongside him in Home Alone , Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Only the Lonely . After memorable performances in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II , Kieran appeared in other notable works, like She's All That and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World . Today, he's best known for playing Roman Roy in HBO's drama Succession .

Macaulay and Kieran's brother, Rory, portrayed younger versions of Macaulay in several projects, including Richie Rich and Igby Goes Down . He also starred in You Can Count on Me opposite  Laura Linney and in  Signs  with  Mel Gibson  and  Joaquin Phoenix . Since then, Rory's credits have included Scream 4 , Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Under the Banner of Heaven .

Their sister Quinn Culkin had a short-lived acting career, only starring in Wish Kid  and  The Good Son with Macaulay. Similarly, Christian Culkin appeared in My Summer Story with Kieran and Shane Culkin was cast in  Our Town  on Broadway at  Lincoln Center Theater .

The group's late sister, Dakota Culkin, was an art production assistant before she died in 2008 at the age of 29 when she was struck by a car.

Their parents separated after 21 years

In the summer of 1995, Brentrup filed papers in the New York State Supreme Court seeking custody of their six minor kids and the right to manage their careers. Nearly two years later, Kit decided not to contest custody and avoided a trial, per The New York Times .

Brentrup eventually remarried and moved to a ranch in Billings, Montana.

They were mostly raised by their mom

Evan Agostini/ImageDirect

The Culkins' family manager told Vanity Fair in 2018 that Brentrup "maintained strong family values" with her kids before and after the breakup, "like the family having a meal together, the Christmas tree, Thanksgiving. These are all important things to Patty, and she instilled that in her kids."

At the 2024 Golden Globes , Kieran shared admiration for their mother, calling her " amazing ." He added, "I have no idea how my mom did it — she raised in this basically studio apartment and I don't know how she did it."

Macaulay has alleged that his father was abusive

Macaulay has spoken about his strained relationship with his father and has accused Kit of being "physically and mentally ” abusive and resentful of his career success.

"[He said] 'Do good or I'll hit you.' He was a bad man. He was abusive, physically and mentally — I can show you all my scars if I wanted to," he said on WTF With Marc Maron in 2018.

Macaulay also voiced that Kit was jealous of his fame. "Everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old," he explained, adding that his father pressured him to work even when he didn't want to any longer and often made him sleep on a couch.

For his part, Kit's late partner, Jeanette Krylowski, denied that he was abusive to any of his children, telling New York Magazine that Brentrup lied to their kids to alienate them from their father.

"My analysis is [that] she was the only one not getting famous and she felt left behind," Krylowski said. "The kids do what Mom tells them to, because through the years, Mom had said, 'Your father doesn't love you, your father doesn't love you.' "

Macaulay removed his parents from managing his finances

Stuart Ramson/Daily Mail/Shutterstock 

Kit managed Macaulay's career, contracts and finances. He developed a reputation for being difficult to work with, reportedly delaying films including The Good Son and The Nutcracker due to his demands, according to The New York Times .

Despite his dad negotiating on his behalf in Hollywood, Macaulay said it wasn't until his parents' custody battle that he learned he was worth about $50 million because Kit kept him in the dark about his finances.

"My father would hide newspapers from me so I wouldn't read the stuff about him or find out how much I was making," he told New York Magazine .

After the My Girl star found out about his earnings, he learned that the only way he could access it was if he removed Kit from the trust fund, and because he "didn't want to make it messy," he pulled both of his parents' names and opted for an executor.

"I had millions and millions of dollars in the bank and my mother couldn't pay the rent because she was spending all of her money on lawyers. We were about to get evicted from our apartment," he said of his decision.

Kit is estranged from the family

Speaking with New York Magazine in 2001, Macaulay shared that he hadn't seen his father since 1997, when the custody dispute ended. The actor also noted that when Kit disappeared, he "stole all of my memorabilia, like my very first costume and all the things I had collected over the years."

Although he no longer had cherished items, Macaulay was ready to move on. "For now, my opinion is, the farther away he is the better when it comes to, like, everything,” he said. “We think he’s in Arizona. That guy always wanted to be a cowboy.”

During his appearance on WTF With Marc Maron , he further added that he hasn't spoken to his father in "about a quarter of a century."

Kieran revealed to Vanity Fair that he was also estranged from Kit. “He’s not a good dude, but he wasn’t really a big part of my life after the age of 15," he said, adding that Brentrup was his parent.

In January 2014, Kit suffered a massive stroke, TMZ reported . EMTs responded to a call at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon, and he was hospitalized in intensive care. Kit reportedly lost all motor function at the time, which he later confirmed after recovering.

Kieran told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that his father came to watch him in a play following his stroke.

"He carried cards around with him that said, 'I'm not stupid. I understand you. I just had a stroke,' " he recalled, adding that Kit told him that Krylowski had dementia at the time. (She died in 2017.)

Kieran said he and Kit didn't speak again following the visit.

Macaulay wrote about his father in a book

Mat Szwajkos/Getty

Macaulay and Kieran's father was a large part of the inspiration for the elder Culkin's semi-autobiographical novel Junior , published in 2006. The book featured essays, poetry and open letters to Kit.

"I think there's two different fathers that I have. I have my father, and I have the one in my head," he told New York Magazine that same year. "The real one is gone and should be gone."

Macaulay explained that part of his reason for writing Junior was to put the father in his head "to rest" and gain closure on their relationship, partly because Kit wouldn't take accountability for how he treated him and his siblings.

"He would black out all the terrible things that he did, and that hurt me more, because he'd go to bed at night thinking he was a good person," he said. "People do bad things in their lives. And those [sorts] of things are forgivable. That's half the point of having confession in church — you need to be able to fess up to what you've done. He just couldn't."

As for what his father taught him, Macaulay shared, "I knew from a very early age that I better take notes on him. Notes on how not to be, notes on how I don’t want to be when I grow up.”

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, george balanchine's the nutcracker.

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There are no doubt those who leap with glee as the holiday season approaches, eager to have another chance to see " The Nutcracker ." I am not among their number. I've had it up to here with "The Nutcracker," which has been so overexposed that even Tchaikovsky's wonderful music has become too familiar. There ought to be some kind of rationing system for great music; United Airlines should be ashamed of buying the rights to "Rhapsody in Blue" and making it cheap as a commercial jingle.

All of which brings us to "George Balanchine's the Nutcracker," the first movie, so far as I know, with a possessive title in honor of a dead choreographer. Usually that honor goes only to living directors with clout, as in " Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas ." Tchaikovsky and Balanchine and the New York City Ballet notwithstanding, this "Nutcracker's" biggest name is twee little MacAulay Culkin , who plays the nutcracker and doubles as one of the children treated to a night's fantasy of dance and enchantment.

Culkin does not dance in the film, aside from a few hops, a jump and a skip or two. What he does, mostly, is smile, in closeup, where he seems to be wearing more lipstick than the ballerinas.

Considering Macaulay's current stature in Hollywood, Ralf Bode's cinematography does him no favors. He seems peripheral to all of the action, sort of like a celebrity guest or visiting royalty, nodding benevolently from the corners of shots. And one closeup shows Macaulay and his little-girl friend so ill-lighted that they can hardly be seen.

That leaves the dancing and the music. The music has held up well for 101 years and needs no praise from me. The dancing is also quite competent and graceful in this film, but it is filmed dancing, not movie choreography. I suppose that's why Balanchine is so prominent in the title. The camera plants itself for a frontal view of the stage, and then there are closeups and reaction shots, all done by the numbers, generating no magic.

"The Nutcracker" is fine as what it is, but need not become a habit. My advice is to limit one's viewing to certain passages in life. One should see it once as a child, once as a parent and once as a grandparent. If one does not become a parent or a grandparent, in this particular case that's just plain good luck.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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George Balanchine's The Nutcracker (1993)

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4 KILLED FLEEING BLAZE IN HIGH-RISE

By Susan Sachs

• Dec. 24, 1998

Four people died in the superheated, smoke-filled stairwell of an Upper West Side high-rise yesterday as they tried to escape a fire that started in a 19th-floor apartment where the family of the actor Macaulay Culkin lived.

It was the second fire with multiple deaths in a New York City apartment building in less than a week, coming just five days after three firefighters were killed responding to a blaze in Brooklyn.

Fire officials had not determined the exact cause of the blaze, but said they suspected that an electric heat pump in the apartment may have shorted out.

The victims -- three women and one man who were found dead on floors above the fire -- were probably trapped in what Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen described as ''a blast of heat and smoke that went up the stairway like a chimney.'' The victims were found in a stairwell on the 27th and 29th floors, officials said.

The victims were identified as Wanda Chappell, 39, a senior vice president at Random House; Lillian Lowder, 28, who worked in the building; Constance Hurley, 77, who lived on the 28th floor, and Maitiu Breathnach, 33, who lived on the 25th floor and was an executive with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The fatal circumstances, Commissioner Von Essen said, were similar to those that led to the deaths of the three firefighters last Friday. In that case, the firefighters died when a fireball engulfed them as they entered the narrow hallway of the burning Brooklyn building.

''When we start to move in, the fire comes out -- it roars out, it vents itself up through the stairwells, then out the building,'' Commissioner Van Essen said. ''And if these people were coming down or were trying to get down below the fire, they could have gotten caught in that blast of smoke and heat.''

The four-alarm fire was reported shortly before 10 A.M. at South Park Towers, a 51-story building at 124 West 60th Street with 542 apartments on the upper floors and medical and commercial offices on the lower 10 floors.

Commissioner Von Essen said the building, which opened in 1986, has a sprinkler system for the lower 10 commercial-use floors. City regulations do not require sprinklers for the upper residential floors, he said.

As white ashy smoke poured from the window of the Culkin apartment, on the southeast corner of the building, residents of other apartments above, below and on the other side ran onto their balconies waving and shouting for help. The Culkin family escaped without injury.

Patients from the doctors' offices, including one woman who said she had time only to throw on her overcoat over a flimsy paper medical gown, ran to the street as nearly 200 firefighters and fire trucks from 48 separate companies arrived on the scene.

Inside the building, the 19th floor was an inferno of orange flames, sizzling plaster and black smoke, fire officials said. Nine firefighters were injured, most with neck, back and shoulder pain. Two were in stable condition at New York Presbyterian Hospital, where they were treated for burns on their faces and necks.

Fire officials said it took about two and a half hours to control the blaze, which destroyed the Culkins' residence and caused extensive damage on the 19th floor.

Law enforcement officials said the blaze started in apartments 19D and 19E, separate units that had been combined into one apartment. They said they suspected that an electric heat pump, part of a heating unit mounted on the wall of each apartment, may have shorted out.

The unit from the scorched and gutted apartment was removed and will be sent to electrical engineering consultants for study, the officials said.

One witness, observing the fast-spreading fire from an adjacent building, said he saw a Christmas tree on fire inside the apartment. The witness, Joe Libretti, an ironworker at a building under construction at 2 Columbus Circle, said he looked over to South Park Towers from his perch on the 15th floor at about 9:45 A.M. and saw the window of the 19th-floor apartment blast open.

''It was like a pop -- it cracked it and it popped,'' Mr. Libretti said.

The fire was so intense, Mr. Libretti said, that the window frame of the apartment melted as the fire ''spread like a wild cat.''

Mr. Culkin's mother, Patricia Bentrup, lived in the apartment, as did at least three of Mr. Culkin's younger brothers, according to neighbors. One of the brothers, Kieran, has also appeared in films, including ''Father of the Bride 2.''

Macaulay Culkin, who gained fame with his lead role in the film ''Home Alone,'' lives separately from the family. Michele Bega, his publicist, said, ''The Culkins are fine, but saddened for those who perished in the fire.''

Ms. Bega said she had no information on the family's whereabouts.

Neighbors said they saw Mrs. Bentrup and some of the children, several of whom attend acting classes at the nearby Professional Children's School, in the building lobby, wrapped in blankets, shortly after the fire alarm sounded.

Residents caught inside the building described the scene inside South Park Towers as one of chaos, confusion, thick smoke and fear.

''I was one of the first ones down the stairs,'' said Steve Young, who lives on the 22d floor. When he made his way down a stairway, he said, it was already so thick with smoke that he could barely see in front of him.

Miho Sakata, a publicist who lives in apartment 18C, one floor down and one over from where the fire started, said she heard a feeble ringing as she was packing for a holiday trip home to Japan.

''It was the fire alarm but the sound was real weak, like if you were listening to music, you would have missed it,'' she said.

Still, Ms. Sakata opened her window and saw streams of white smoke pouring from the apartment windows above her own. Panicking, she packed a small bag and ran into the hallway.

''But I wasn't sure where to go,'' she said, shivering on the street in only sweat pants and a sweat shirt. ''First I went to the A stairs, then to the B stairs because there were firemen running up both of them. Someone just told me to go downstairs, so I did.''

Firefighters, starting from the top floors, went door to door, exhorting residents who were still inside to stay put.

''People that stay in their apartments are perfectly safe,'' said Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was on the scene within 30 minutes after the fire had started. ''The building is fireproof. The apartments are fireproof. I know people are very anxious and very nervous but the safest thing they can do for themselves and their children is to stay in their apartments and don't leave.''

Firefighters who clambered up the stairwell to the 19th floor said they confronted a hellish scene.

Wind coming through the Culkins' apartment door had crammed smoke and hot gas into the enclosed space of the corridor. When the firefighters opened the stairwell door, they said, an orange wall of flame roared toward them.

''You can't see anything, it's black from the smoke, until the fire starts coming -- then everything is red,'' said Capt. Jack Kleehaas of Engine Company 40, one of the crew members on the scene. ''First it's black, then it's hot, then it's orange. You're burned before you see it coming.''

The fire scorched the first three firefighters through the door, he said, and they struggled back. The last firefighter and crew members from Ladder Company 4 leapt into the fire and pulled the burned men into the stairway.

Captain Kleehaas said he was behind the ladder company. He described the heat as so ferocious -- ''it was like a pizza oven,'' he said -- that it burned the cover of the fire hose and prevented firefighters from crawling along the floor, which was covered with a red-hot layer of burning, steaming plaster.

It took them 15 minutes of crouching and duck-walking and tugging the hose behind them, he said, to cover the 75-foot length of hallway.

Michele de Milly, a spokeswoman for the Brodsky Organization, which constructed the building in 1985, said that the company would be working through the night to make sure that residents could return to their apartments. ''It is a huge, massive clean-up job to get people back in their apartments,'' she said.

Ms. de Milly said there was considerable water damage to the building's five elevators, but two of them were up and running last night; one was being used to remove construction debris. Ms. de Milly said that the police had forced open 70 doors during the fire, and the locks were being replaced.