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Topics: Celebrity, Macaulay Culkin, Parenting, US News, Money
Olivia Burke
Topics: Celebrity, Macaulay Culkin, Parenting, US News, Money
Macaulay Culkin has shared further details of what it was like to grow up with his 'narcissistic' and 'abusive' father in a candid new interview.
As well as confirming that he hasn't spoken to his dad, Christopher 'Kit' Culkin, for the last three decades, the child star delved into the details of his traumatic childhood.
Describing his father as the 'worst person he's ever known in his entire life', Macaulay revealed why he believes cutting ties with Kit as a teenager was the right choice.
Now he's 44-years-old with two children of his own - who he shares with his wife Brenda Song - the Home Alone actor said he has even more clarity about his strained relationship with Kit.
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During a recent appearance on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s podcast, Sibling Revelry, Macaulay said his father 'deserves' to be iced out by him and his siblings.
"He’s a man who had seven kids, and he has four grandkids, and none of them want anything to do with him," Macaulay said. "As a man myself, I would know that I f**ked up, I really must have done something wrong...
"I have more than an inkling that he does not feel that way. Like, we're wrong, and he's right - he's one of those kind of, like, narcissistic, crazy people."
He reckons that Kit, a former Broadway performer, had resentment towards him from the moment his career in show business started in the 1980s as his dad was jealous of his success.
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"All of a sudden, he has this kid that didn’t look anything like him - I look a lot like my mother, I don’t look like him - and right off the bat, I instantly got the lead stuff in the ballet company, I instantly booked all these things," Macaulay said.
"I think he resented me for that. I think he kind of hated me a little bit for that, so I think that’s why he was a little bit harsh with me."
Macaulay claims that his father was 'abusive' towards each of his seven children, but believes he 'took a big brunt of it' while travelling alone with his father for work.
"When I was on the road doing things, it was just me and him, so I was kind of locked in a room with a crazy person," he recalled. "I really took the brunt of it for the family, but they got their licks, too; like I said, he was just a bad guy across the board. He was a son of a b**ch; he was bad to his kids, he was bad to his wife, he was the worst person I’ve ever known in my entire life."
Although he acknowledges all of this 'super sucks', Macaulay reckons he wouldn't be the man, or the father, that he is today if it 'wasn't for his experience'.
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Recalling how he was 'always butting heads' with his dad, he added: "I would take his whooping and stuff like that, but the whole time, I was sitting there going: 'Oh, I'm going to win at the end'.
"I just sit tight, I'll take the whoopings, but I’m going to outlast him; I’m going to win."
As film fans will be well aware, Macaulay achieved incredible success in Hollywood when he was just a schoolboy after starring in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
He only raked in $100,000 for his iconic role in the first film, but he received a bumper payday the second time round to star in its sequel, which totalled up to around $4.5 million.
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Macaulay then went on to star in a plethora of hit movies, such as My Girl, The Good Son, The Nutcracker, Getting Even with Dad, The Pagemaster and Richie Rich.
After a decade of relentless work, he decided to step away from the spotlight and take a break from acting at the age of 14 - because he was 'so tired' of all the weight on his shoulders.
Speaking on the podcast, he recalled how he tried to talk to Kit about 'needing a break' from the constant stream of gigs he was getting when he was around 12-years-old, but says that this ultimately fell on deaf ears.
And by the time he had turned 14, the relationship between his dad and his mother, Patricia Brentrup, had completely broke down and they split up in 1995.
These two were also acting as Macaulay's managers at the time, with all of the money he earned from his film gigs being placed into a trust fund by them - while they pocketed around 15% of their son's earnings per film.
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As his parents entered a bitter custody battle over their children, Macaulay later removed both of them from his trust fund so he could have control of his earnings.
He previously revealed that his mum could not afford to pay their rent as she was using all her money to pay for lawyers to fight Kit - and the brood were on the cusp of being evicted from their apartment.
Speaking to Esquire in 2020, he explained: "The only way I could get access to that money was to take my father’s name off it, but I didn’t want to make it messy, so I figured I’d take both their names off.
"It’s always misconstrued, that I ‘emancipated’ myself from my parents. 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**king pinkie in the pie."
Macaulay has now told the Hudson's of the relief he felt when his dad could no longer access his money, as this marked a turning point in his life, where he began to start 'taking ownership' of himself.
Discussing this contentious time, he said his parents were 'too busy fighting each other' to care about his early retirement from acting - while they were already 'pretty well set' thanks to their 15% slice anyway.
"Also, I had a certain amount of autonomy," he went on. "Like: ‘You’re gonna do this movie' - at that point, I go: ‘No, f**k you, what you gonna do?’
"During the whole custody thing, I wanted nothing to do with my f**king father. He was just the worst, and the judge was like, 'Well, you have to do visitations with him'.
"I didn’t say this to the judge - I was a smarta**, but I wasn’t that much of a smarta** - but I told my lawyer: ‘I’m not doing that'.
"He’s like: ‘Well, you’ll be in contempt of court,’ I go: ‘OK, how about I dare this judge to put me in jail for not wanting to visit [my] abusive father.
"Actually, I’m going to double down on that; I double dare him to arrest the most famous kid in the world…’ I never played that card, but that was the one time I kind of played that card."