Macaulay Culkin is giving a candid update about his relationship — or lack thereof — with his father, Kit Culkin, who he has previously called a “bad man.”
The 44-year-old actor revealed during a recent interview on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s “Sibling Reverly“ podcast that he and his seven living siblings and their kids are all estranged from the elder Culkin, and they intend to keep it that way.
“I haven’t spoken to him in, what would it be, about 30-something years?” said Macaulay Culkin. “He deserves it, too. He’s a man who — he had seven kids, and now he has four grandkids, and none of them want anything to do with him.”
He added that if his family members were shunning him, he would know that he had “f—– up” and hurt them. But he believes his father, whom he called “the worst person” he’d ever known, wouldn’t feel that way.
“I have more than an inkling that he does not feel that way,” he said. “Like we’re wrong and he’s right. He’s one of those narcissistic, crazy people.”
The “Home Alone” franchise star recalled being embroiled as a child in the ugly custody battle between his dad and his mom, Patricia Brentrup, in the 1990s.
“I wanted nothing to do with my f—— father,” he remembered. “He was just the worst. The judge was like, ‘Well, you have to do visitations with him’ … I told my lawyer, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.’”
Macaulay Culkin said his lawyer warned him during the trial that he would be in contempt of court if he did not meet with his father.
The actor, who was then at the height of his fame as a child star recalled telling his lawyer, “Well, how about this? I dare the judge to put me in jail for not wanting to visit his abusive father.”
He added, “I actually had to double down on that: ‘I double dare him to arrest the most famous kid in the world.’ … That was the one time I played that card.”
Now that he and fiancée, actor Brenda Song, 37, are parents to two young sons of their own, Macaulay Culkin is even more shocked by his father’s alleged mistreatment of his children.
“Now that I got kids of my own … it kicks up some dust and I go, ‘I can’t believe he was like that. He had all these lovely kids, and talented kids too,’” he said.
The “Saved!” star said he believes his dad, a stage actor, “resented” him for his Hollywood success. “I think he kind of hated me a little bit for that,” he said.
He recalled that when he was 14, after his parents parted ways, he felt he could finally take the “break” he’d long wanted from movie making.
“I said, ‘Great, I quit, because now he’s out of the picture.’ I said, ‘I hope you guys had a good time and made as much money as you possibly could because there’s no more coming from me,’” he said. “And that was it. I started taking ownership of myself.”
Macaulay Culkin opened up about his estrangement from his father during a 2018 interview on comedian Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast.
He described his father, whom he called a “bad man,” of being “jealous” of his acting career. “Everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old,” he said.