Macaulay Culkin’s Life Has Been More Bizarre Than Anyone Could Have Guessed

Macaulay Culkin was a prolific child actor, best known for his role as Kevin in Home Alone at age 10. Today, he is 42 and living a quieter life with his fiancee, actress Brenda Song, and their son Dakota. A lot had happened in his life in the year in between, from an arrest for drug possession to forming his own comedy band. But despite all of his challenges and triumphs, Culkin has kept his humility and sense of humor. 

Life as a Child Star

Macaulay Culkin was born in New York City and has six siblings. His father, Kit Culkin, was a former child actor, and he got his children into acting at young ages. The family struggled financially in Culkin’s early childhood. His first credited film role was in Rocket Gibraltar in 1988. [1]

Culkin has said that his father, who was also his manager, was abusive “mentally and physically.” He would use threats like “do good or I’ll hit you.” Culkin believes part of the abuse came from jealousy because “everything he tried to do in life, I excelled at before I was 10 years old”. After Home Alone, his money-motivated father pushed to get him more film roles. But after several years, Culkin became tired. “It started feeling like a chore. I started vocalizing that and not being heard: I was saying, ‘I wanna go to school — I haven’t done a full year of school since first grade,’ ” he said. [2]

After starring in Richie Rich in 1994, Culkin’s parents split up. They weren’t legally married, so there was no divorce, but there was a messy custody battle over two years. This battle was not just over their seven children, but also Culkin’s trust fund. This led to Culkin hiring an executor to oversee his finances and remove his parents’ names from his account. Many people took this to mean that Culkin had emancipated, but this was not the case. The custody battle ended soon after. In 2000, Jennifer Adamson, Culkin’s half-sister, died of a drug overdose. Then, in 2008, his sister Dakota died in a car accident. 

“Home Alone Again”

Macaulay Culkin had stepped back from acting as a teenager but occasionally returned in his 20s. But during this middle period, Culkin was arrested for drug possession, which led to people speculating that he was a drug addict. Later on, Culkin refutes this, saying that although he used drugs, he never had a dependence on them. During this time, Culkin married actress Rachel Miner when they were both 18, but they divorced four years later. He also dated Mila Kunis before breaking up in 2010. 

Although he had retired from acting when he was 14, he returned to acting in 2000 with the Off-Broadway show Madame Melville and the 2003 film Party Monster. But his appearances were more sporadic than his busy schedule as a child actor. He has stated that he enjoys acting, but “I don’t enjoy a lot of the other things that come around it.” Perhaps his most well-known role from this era was the Google Assistant ad “Home Alone Again.”

Macaulay Culkin published a book when he was 25, Junior, a cross between a novel and a memoir, where he expresses the struggles of being a child star. He went on to form the comedy band Pizza Underground, which went on a tour in 2014. He met Brenda Song in 2017 while filming Changeland. In 2021, Culkin and Song became parents, naming their son Dakota after Culkin’s sister. [3] Then they got in engaged in January 2022. In 2017, he created Bunny Ears, a satirical version of a lifestyle brand, including a blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. 

Macaulay Culkin Now

“People assume that I’m crazy, or a kook, or damaged,” Culkin said. “Weird. Cracked. And up until the last year or two, I haven’t really put myself out there at all. So I can understand that. It’s also like, okay, everybody, stop acting so freaking shocked that I’m relatively well-adjusted.” 

He explained that despite the difficulties in his early life “it could have been worse” and he’s grateful for everything that came after. “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. It took me a long time to get to that place, and I had to have that conversation with myself and go, like, Honestly, Mack? It’s not so bad. I want for nothing and need for even less. I’m good, man.” [4]

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