Remember Macaulay Culkin, the then-cute star of the movie Home Alone? Maybe you didn’t know this, but he and the late King of Pop were friends, when Culkin was a child. Michael Jackson’s friendship with Macaulay Culkin was fraught with controversy back in the day, and this still continues to the present.
In a recent interview on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, Macaulay Culkin offers a brief, yet interesting peek into that time in his life.
Michael Jackson’s friendship with Macaulay Culkin
The 37-year-old Culkin considers himself retired from Hollywood. Culkin reveals in the podcast that he’s been living in Paris for four years now.
He leads an idyllic life, “walking around with a baguette tucked under my arm, living the romantic life,” according to Culkin.
It wasn’t long before Culkin opened up about Michael Jackson’s friendship with him. He remembered the first time he met Michael Jackson around the age of nine.
A legitimate friendship
Jackson and Culkin met after Culkin’s performance in a production of The Nutcracker. Culkin recounted how Jackson went backstage with Donald Trump.
“He came backstage before the show. He loved dance, he was a dance man,” Culkin said. “[Michael] came backstage with Donald Trump, because they were friendly back then.”
“I remember he looked at me like, ‘I know you from somewhere. Oh, Uncle Buck, yeah you’re funny.’
“Then after Home Alone came out, he reached out to me and my family.”
It wasn’t until the movie Home Alone was released when Michael Jackson’s friendship with him took off.
Culkin said, “There’s no child actor self-help group. He said, ‘Do you want to hang out? Do you want to come to my house?’
“He was like my best friend growing up for a stretch of my life,” Culkin added. “It was a legitimate friendship.”
Image source: theplace2.ru
Through trials
According to Culkin, they both had more in common than rising to fame at such a young age.
“He enjoyed my youthfulness. He liked being a kid with me. It never struck me as odd. I never felt uncomfortable. That was just the way he was.”
Culkin credited Jackson in part for helping him through a difficult time with his family.
The former child actor also testified in Jackson’s 2005 trial on grounds of child molestation. In truth, he defended his friend Jackson, stating that the allegations were “absolutely ridiculous.“
Eventually, Michael Jackson was found innocent.
Never uncomfortable
Culkin explained further that during Michael Jackson’s friendship with him, Jackson never made him feel uncomfortable. He never found his interest in him odd either.
“I never felt uncomfortable, that was the way that he was, down to his bone marrow. It never felt weird. It was just the way that it was. I looked at him for who he was.”
“At that point, I was pretty famous and I met plenty of famous people, his fame did not make a thing. I was not enamoured by him.”
A testament to Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson’s friendship
As a testament to Michael Jackson’s friendship with him, Jackson made Culkin godfather to his daughter, Paris Jackson. At this point during the podcast, Culkin declined to talk at length about Paris Jackson.
“I am close with Paris,” he said. “I’m going to warn you now; I am very protective of her so just look out. I am a very open book when it comes to things but like with her, she is beloved by me.”
“I’m just letting you know if we want to start going down that road it’s going to be a dead-end, you know, but I mean that in the fact that I love her so much. She’s tall, and beautiful and smart. It’s great.”